Friday, 9:10 pm

A few facts:

- We will be moving to Shanghai.

- We expect to move in September, in time for Dave to begin the fiscal year on October 1.

- We have an estimated range for our housing allowance, yet to be negotiated as final.


We met Sheila this morning, and she is fantastic. She and Jack showed us around town today, and having local people orient us was invaluable. Sheila is from Canada, and has lived in China for 4 years. Jack is Shanghainese. Not only did they show us a number of apartments in our price range, but Sheila also answered my list of a million questions. Here's what we learned today:

1. You can get by with very little Chinese.
Sheila speaks only limited Chinese, although her husband and children are fluent. She frequents places where people speak at least some English - which is plenty of places. Or she uses a translator, frequently her family or her coworkers. Dave's coworkers have offered this as well. If we're ever in a bind, call their cell phone and they will happily translate for us.

2. We will be able to afford a nice place to live.
Sheila was given a budget for us - a smaller number than we were advised the day before. And everything we saw seemed quite livable. We will have no trouble spending as much as they allot us, and we will not live in squallor. In fact, we will certainly live somewhere comfortable.

3. Community may trump commute.
We loved two places. Top of the City is less than a 10 minute walk to Dave's office. It also has a strip of restaurants and shops outside that looked fantastic, and over 60 restaurants deliver. The location is perfect, and the views out the window and off the balcony were delicious. Yanlord Garden is a complex of maybe 30 high-rises with grassy lawns, lakes and fountains appropriate for wading, playgrounds, swimming pools, cafes and restaurants and even a kindegarten covering the space in between. When we were there, the grasses were covered with kids playing ball with their parents, the playgrounds were full, the tables at the libray were swarming with children. There were loads of kids and loads of families. It seemed extremely family friendly and comfortable - as if everything were designed to be climbed over and roughed up. And our children's environment and our family's community are probably the most important factor in this decision. Plus, Sheila's girls are getting on towards babysitting age and live within the complex - perfect!

4. We are advised not to bring more than our clothes with us.
I can't adjust to this. On this trip, I've become convinced that I don't need to bring much. But I have trouble with replacing everything that I own. Some things it'll be fine to buy cheap, throw away items - plates and bowls, kitchen linens, towels. But some things, its wonderful to have nice - bed linens, pots and pans. And we already have the nice, so why buy it again?

5. Medical care is western and top-notch.
We visited a clinic, and they gave us some literature. Plenty of doctors are available (although no speech therapists), and their facility and on-call procedures are thoroughly modern.

6. Not everything can be had in Shanghai, but quite a few Western standards... at a price.
We went through City Supermarket, the import grocery. Again, flour was over $3 a bag. We couldn't figure out if they have whole milk, and I didn't see any chili powder. They do have Similac and organic baby food. As I think about it, the foods I'm most concerned about decrease as the children get older. Hopefully, most of these things won't be a problem for very long. By September, S-- will already be 9 months old. By 1 year, L-- was eating the same food as us, so that's no more than a few months of baby food and formula.

7. You could not pay me enough money to drive in Shanghai.
Oh my gosh.
Just because you have a green walk signal does not mean you should not look both ways before crossing. Man, they just come at you. And its not even a game of chicken - nobody stops at the last minute. Somebody veers into oncoming traffic, and the other car veers into pedestrians on the sidewalk. It's amazing.

8. We need adaptors for any electronics we bring with us.
And I don't expect to bring many electronics. But Sheila's burnt out her cell phone using the wrong voltage. On anything important enough to bring, its important to have an adaptor.

9. Transportation with babies will be a challenge.
Taxis don't even have seat belts. Car seats would be impossible without renting a car and driver for the day. That's about 350RMB per day - $45 or so. So it may be worth renting a car and driver one day a month to run errands and do major shopping. Would we bring or buy car seats for one day a month, or just leave the kids at home that day? And we are strongly advised not to bring children on the metro during rush hour. That's before 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, and between 4:30 and 7:30 in the evening. Living within walking distance of most of our needs will be crucial, because I think our strategy must be simply not to take the girls in cars any more than is absolutely necessary.

I think that we're going to be okay. Shanghai has been easier than Hong Kong, entirely because we have had people holding our hands the entire way. But its not unrealistic to think that we will have those same people holding our hands when we move here as well. Sheila and Jack have been hired to help with our relocation, and certainly will be helping us out throughout the process. Dave's coworkers will still be his coworkers, and that relationship will only deepen. We will probably choose to live somewhere like Yanlord Gardens, where we could go a week without leaving the grounds if we so chose. We won't. But it'll be nice to be able to keep the scariness at bay, when necessary. On what Sheila calls "bad China days," when everything is difficult, it'll be nice to come home somewhere comfortable.

I'm also becoming more convinced that we'll need to come home twice a year. If it is important to us that our girls know their family, then they need to see them more than once a year. Even if that comes at our own personal expense, I think its something we'll need to do. It'll be interesting to see what our package is - whether this will be included, or whether we feel we'll be able to afford it if its not.