This week has been a Golden Week here in China -- basically a week holiday to celebrate China's National Day (Oct. 1st) and the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival. Matthew and the kids are all home from work/school. Lots of people travel during this week. I read somewhere that they were expecting 7 million people to visit Shanghai. I think we saw them all on the subway.
Matthew and Eli started the week with new haircuts. Eli got a 40 minute haircut. No joke. Complete with hair washing, blow dry, and style (with product!).
Part of the week's celebration includes three nights of fireworks -- convienently set off right outside our living room window.
It is actually a competition of sorts, with different countries participating. We've seen Canada, China, Poland, and France so far. Tomorrow night is the last night with Belgium and Italy. Each country has a full 30 minute performance. Really mind blowing stuff.
But how do you top world-class fireworks performances? Easy. Dumplings.
We took a day trip to Nanxiang -- a town within the borders of Shanghai and the birthplace of xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings. Xiaolongbaos are mouth-watering little guys who are typically filled with meat, usually pork, and solid meat aspic. Then our little friends are steamed and the aspic melts into a mouthful of soup. You drop them into a bath of vinegar and ginger, poke a hole to let the steam out, then eat up. We downed 40 of them in about 10 minutes.
Nanxiang is also home to Guyi Garden, a beautiful 16th century classical garden. This guy was there making beautiful candy animals from the Chinese zodiac.
We explored the gardens and then sat down for a snack. Eli captured the moment with this lovely shot.
We headed home and ran into this delivery on the way. Maybe the beginnings of solid meat aspic?
Our other big outing of the week was to the Shanghai Sculpture Park (this is a blog I found a while ago, but only today realized it's actually the blog of Naomi and Townes' computer/math teacher!). It's a really amazing place about an hour away by metro. The only bad thing about our trip was that we picked a day with perhaps the worst air quality since we arrived in Shanghai. Stay inside and crank your air filter type of day. Instead we ran around outside in it. We survived, but I can't help but worry if we took a few years off of our lives.
This made it all worth while though. Introducing the Fuma Fuma Dome:
Lots of other cool sculptures at the park, and a really great lunch.
Now we have a few more days to recover from Golden Week before the DeGroots arrive on Wednesday.
Matthew and Eli started the week with new haircuts. Eli got a 40 minute haircut. No joke. Complete with hair washing, blow dry, and style (with product!).
Part of the week's celebration includes three nights of fireworks -- convienently set off right outside our living room window.
But how do you top world-class fireworks performances? Easy. Dumplings.
We took a day trip to Nanxiang -- a town within the borders of Shanghai and the birthplace of xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings. Xiaolongbaos are mouth-watering little guys who are typically filled with meat, usually pork, and solid meat aspic. Then our little friends are steamed and the aspic melts into a mouthful of soup. You drop them into a bath of vinegar and ginger, poke a hole to let the steam out, then eat up. We downed 40 of them in about 10 minutes.
Nanxiang is also home to Guyi Garden, a beautiful 16th century classical garden. This guy was there making beautiful candy animals from the Chinese zodiac.
We explored the gardens and then sat down for a snack. Eli captured the moment with this lovely shot.
We headed home and ran into this delivery on the way. Maybe the beginnings of solid meat aspic?
Our other big outing of the week was to the Shanghai Sculpture Park (this is a blog I found a while ago, but only today realized it's actually the blog of Naomi and Townes' computer/math teacher!). It's a really amazing place about an hour away by metro. The only bad thing about our trip was that we picked a day with perhaps the worst air quality since we arrived in Shanghai. Stay inside and crank your air filter type of day. Instead we ran around outside in it. We survived, but I can't help but worry if we took a few years off of our lives.
This made it all worth while though. Introducing the Fuma Fuma Dome:
Lots of other cool sculptures at the park, and a really great lunch.
Now we have a few more days to recover from Golden Week before the DeGroots arrive on Wednesday.
I must have some of those soup dumplings!
ReplyDeleteI too am sooooo jealous of those dumplings. I am also very jealous of the day trip to the sculpture park, would love to bounce on the Fuma Fuma dome. I am not jealous of the air quality or the 7 million visitors. I was annoyed enough with the six out-of-state leaf peepers I got stuck behind today. lovecarl.
ReplyDeleteWe'll learn how to make the soup dumplings and serve them up at our next Chinese New Year party!
ReplyDelete