Shopping in China

 Maybe this isn't interesting to anyone else, but I find it quite interesting.  Obviously there is no Target in China (boo!) but the concept of "one stop shopping" is not really a thing.  So instead of go to Target or WalMart and pick up all the things you need, there are neighborhoods devoted to a certain niche of products.  A couple of weeks ago we stumbled upon the camera and electronics market.  Shop after shop after shop of what looked like identical things.  We weren't actually shopping for that so we didn't compare prices or anything.
Yesterday a friend of mine kindly agreed to show me one of a couple of bus routes she knows.  I was so excited.  If you know where the bus goes then there is less need to communicate in Chinese than with a taxi driver.  The end of the line was the gift market and the toy and stationary market.
The first few shops sold things like gift bags and party hats.  Apparently some stores will only sell it to you if you are planning on buying in quantities of 100 or more.
Autumn has a birthday coming up so my friend helped me find a few items to decorate for Autumn's birthday.  Most the shops looked pretty identical to me, but she helped me find one she thought had more selection.
Then we went over to the gift market.  Floor after floor of amazing shops.  I'm a novice at taking photos and stopping to document life so I don't have much to offer you.  This shop sold beautiful tea sets so I took a picture of the outside so that I might find it again.  There were tons of fans (Chinese, but also like these below) and water bottles and bags and just pretty much anything and everything.

 I took some pictures to help me remember where to find it again.  The building is 7 stories and the quality/price goes up as you go up.

 We went to a stationary market where there are more cards and gift bags and school supplies.  Then we walked a ways and it was the dried fruit, nuts, and dried fish market.  Shop after shop after shop selling walnuts, raisins, dried shrimp, and other sea food type items that I don't recognize.  We were running out of time so we didn't even go into the toy market, but I felt silly that I'd spent so much time hunting for a gift bag for Autumn's present when around this toy market were a million shops all selling . . bags.  Gift bags, bags for people that own shops to buy to put their stuff in in all shapes and sizes.

We crossed the street and walked back towards the bus and passed more nuts, dried fish and fruit.  And on that side of the road it wasn't just one shop, but the shops had hallways that led to more shops that all sold the same things!  It is amazing!  How would a customer pick which shop to use?  I wish I'd taken a picture, but some things felt too awkward and Brandon was amazingly good, but I didn't want to press my luck and thought we better be getting home.

I borrowed my friend's umbrella stroller and Brandon came with us.  Our single stroller is even too large to fit into a taxi trunk (they are incredibly small) so I was having jealousy and wanted to buy one . . but where?  Is there a stroller market somewhere?  I'm sure there is.  During the bus ride on the way to these markets, we passed a scarf market, hat market, and fabric market.  But how would I find this imagined stroller market, much less get to it?

You may have heard of Taobao the Chinese online shopping similar to Amazon I guess.  Well, there is a BaoPal website that is Taobao, but they translate your search and the results into English.  Oh and you have to pay with a local card or WeChat money.  WeChat is a texting/Facebook and other type of message service, but businesses have it too.  So you can even shop through it.  The only way we can get money on WeChat is to pay a local Chinese person cash and they tranfer me money via WeChat.  Levin very kindly, even though I'm sure it was awkward, asked one of his employees and she took cash from him and transferred 1000RMB to me.  And then I went to Baopal.



I found this amazing stroller that folds up super tiny.  And I wanted it!  And I didn't want to wait 3 weeks because we're going on a trip this weekend.  And our shipment still has another month before we get our not so super tiny umbrella stroller we already own.


Levin said, check Amazon.  FYI this one is like $40.  I checked Amazon and they had one alright - even one of the designs has an American flag so it looked identical.  Oh and the Amazon write up had horrible English.  I swear it's the same.  And on American Amazon it costs over $200.  But this one only had one review . . . probably written by a Chinese . . maybe the seller.

I've been wanting to give Baopals a try . . . so this is our test case.  Cross your fingers I get a real stroller.  The other glitch . . even though the website is in English . . after ordering it I read that you should make sure the day of delivery someone can speak Chinese to the delivery guy or it might get returned to the store.  And most deliveries come in the morning . . . and my ayi comes in the afternoon.  It's a gamble.  But I so want a stroller that can fit into any taxi . . and easily.  Yes, we have another umbrella stroller on the slow boat to China and yes . . . I have had more strollers than children over the years.
In other news . . if anyone can tell me where to get a larger kitchen trash can that's for indoor use in China . . I'd love it.  So far . . no luck.

June 2016 Lance's Home Birthday Party - He Turns 2

We were undecided about when we'd have Lance's party, but somehow his presents got taken down and were totally out laying on the couch and he saw them.  So we had an impromptu party even though he was already in his pajamas.  We may be getting a little caked out at this point . . he got some yummy cupcakes though.

 Have I ever mentioned that I love kids aged 18 months to 3?  I don't think kids can be any cuter than at this age.  So I may have too many pictures of him, but I just had to post all of them.

 He got this Fisher Price cash register.  I had the old school version of this when I was a kid and I loved it.  I think I kept it around for years.  And it is definitely one that I remember using.  It was a big hit and we had to keep the other kids at bay so they didn't hog it too much from poor Lance.

 He also got a remote control Thomas.

 He may have gotten scared by it when the other kids drove it towards him.

 Mommy save me!!

June 2016 Oliver's Home Birthday Party

We didn't make it until Oliver's actual birthday to have his home birthday party.  The movers were there on his actual birthday so we did it a few days early.  He's lucky he got fancier cakes because mom was too stressed about moving to make a cake.  So, he got store-bought cake - again.

 This boy loves his super heros.  He got Spiderman lunch box, Avenger action figures, Spiderman water bottle and best of all . . .

 . . . he got a Iron Man/Captain America remote control car that can flip over.  It's pretty darn awesome.

 Here he is driving it that night.  He only had a few days of it before we had to pack it up in our shipment.  We still have about 2 weeks before we get our shipment and I can't wait for the kids to have more toys!  And it will kind of be like Christmas.

Lost Year: Pump It Up Party for Oliver and Lance June 2016

Before we move over seas the government gives us 10 days per diem of hotels and food.  So . . . we had a birthday party on one of our per diem days.  It was a little early because we wanted to make sure Oliver's school friends could come and his birthday was on the last day of school.  He had friends from church and school come.  It was tons of fun an although I'm not sure we'd spend our own money on such a party, it was sooo nice to not stress out about having the house ready or games planned and best of all - no clean up!  They do it all for you!
The bouncy house stuff was a little too big for Lance, but he still had a great time.  Gosh I love this kid!  I wish I could go into this picture and kiss his little cheeks all over and rub his soft head.

 Oliver had a great time!

 I always feel obligated to include a picture of the sleeping baby so that they know they were with us and that we love them.

 You may notice a line on Oliver's head right here.  He tripped on something and hit the wall not long before we left for the party.  Reminds me of when Leah's fingers got smashed on the door on the way to her 5th birthday party.  Autumn hit her head hard on a door a few weeks before this and Lance fell down and hit his head on pavement probably a few days after this.  Good thing they have tough noggins!

 The boy on the left here now lives in our house in Maryland.  It is a little strange seeing his picture on Facebook in our house!  It makes me a little homesick.  But I'm so glad he gets to live there!  I hope he's loving it.

 You get to sit on a little thrown to open your presents.  It was really fun.

 Lance was very eager to climb up on the thrown, but got a little shy and wouldn't really look up at anybody while he was opening his presents.  The Walters and the Hales were so thoughtful and got him his own presents even though most the friends were Oliver's age.

 Happy Birthday Oliver and Lance!!

 This is off topic and not a great picture - I couldn't get a good one and wasn't patient enough.  But Lance had this sweet little corner behind the chair in our living room where I could often find little treasures he had deposited there.  He'd climb back there and play and I thought it was the sweetest thing.

Levin Goes To Chong Ching

It looks like Levin will have the opportunity to travel quite often with this new job.  I am using the word "opportunity" to try and remind myself it can be positive.  I get a little jealous of his work trips and the fun he has and the things he gets to see that I'll never get to see while I'm putting kids to bed alone.  BUT I am really trying to turn over a new leaf and be excited for him and not jealous.  And remind myself they eat duck stomach here.

Anyway, here is what Levin said in an email to his family about his trip to Chong Ching last week.  (Doesn't that name Chong Ching just sound so much like China and when as little kids you pretend to speak Chinese?!  I love it!)

Here are a few photos from a recent work trip.  We visited some duck farms using U.S. feed.  The translations here are hillarious.  We visited a brand new port where they inspected fresh fruit and meat, and as part of the facility was a sampling room where the inspectors analyzed the products to ensure safety.  They misstranslated "sampling room" to "urine collection room".  We also at a hot pot restauant (taylor I think you did this in Chengdu).  They had duck stomach, intestines, beef stomach lining, squid, and other sick stuff.  

Saturday Adventures

Okay, this picture below has nothing to do with Saturday, but it is a letter from Leah to Oliver that says, Dear Oliver Lee Flake.  You are awesome and cool.  Sorry for all the times I've been mean to you. From Leah.

That might give you a feel for what is going on when we're not swimming or watching TV on the week days.

This also has nothing to do with Saturday, but I just have to say part of adjusting to life in a new place is figuring out how to do "normal" life things like cook and laundry.  I sent my sister-in-law a picture of this oven.  Surprise!  She has the same one in Switzerland.  I've never had a convection oven before and wanted tips on when to use it.  The converting to Celsius is pretty easy at least.  I have a nice app and have already memorized most of the conversions.  The clothes dryer also gave me a little surprise . . and I still need help with it.  I could never get clothes dry.  Finally I asked Jenny and to my surprise there is a tank that fills up with water that you have to dump out.  Although yesterday trying to wash our swimming towels I still can't get the darn things dry.  It says it'll run for over an hour, but then after 3 minutes it shuts off and says "done."  I need to ask for more lessons. 

Saturday Levin humored me and took me to the fabric market.  I had done a lot of research on this, even found the Chinese address, and all.  I knew this wouldn't be #1 on Levin's list of things to do so I wanted to do my part instead of leave it up to him like I normally do with stuff like this.  I read a blog about it and discovered I wanted this market, not the bigger more like wholesale market. I read blogs from a lady in Malaysia about it.  We got dropped off by a taxi and the sign looked slightly different . . white instead of red, but otherwise pretty similar.  We got there too early and a lot of stalls were closed.  We didn't do what I'd initially planned which was get a table cloth made, but we did end up buying me some fabric to get a shirt made - just a cotton shirt.  We found a tailor and here he is measuring me.  The kids were great sports (lie) and were so happy waiting for me to get measured.  We'll see how it turns out.  Fingers crossed.

 Other shops.

 As we were driving away we saw the sign I'd been seeing on the internet and a street before it had tons of curtains for sale (we also got suckered into looking at a lot of pretty custom made curtains, but didn't buy any.)  Anyway, so I'm thinking we only hit a portion of the market.  I'm excited to try and go back though.  It's not too far from our apartment!
We tried to go to the Canton Tower, but that also turned out to be more of a reconnaissance mission and we didn't go to the top.  But I wasn't disappointed in our day because we have more information to use going forward.
And best news for the kids, there was a McDonald's at the base of the tower.  After dragging them around the electronics market also (kind of by accident) we gave in and took them.  Happy Meals are cheaper than in the U.S. so we have gotten them Happy Meals both times we've hit McDonald's here.  Finally we had happy kids!  This picture doesn't show it as well, but the place is packed.  We had to struggle to find a table, race to it once we could tell it was about to be available, and then hold our spot while Levin orders.  Russia was always like this also.

 I really wanted an ice cream sundae so Levin went and bought some.  Hmm . . Leah liked it.

 Can you tell that it's green?  Well, it's not mint. It's Green Tea flavored!!!  I think the kids were so hungry they didn't notice, but it was disgusting.  It is the only ice cream I've ever seen people with at McDonalds and apparently Chinese love it because it seems every customer makes sure to also get some green ice cream.  I suspected it wasn't mint, but I thought they'd have vanilla as an option . . guess not.

 And then we had more swimming.  Thank heavens for this pool.  I don't know how we'd survive without it.

Post by Leah

I am Leah and these are all of my favorite things about us moving to China.

 I have a Kindle that keeps me entertained. It has books, games, and more.

 In our apartment we have balconies almost in every room.

 We have three TV's.  One in my brother's room, one in my mom and dad's room, and one in the living room.  My favorite show is Nspector Gadget.  We have Netflix here which we didn't have before.

 We have hardly any toys.  Most of them I don't like.  But my sister has one of my favorite toys.  It's almost her birthday.

 We have a cleaner named Jenny.  She cooks sometimes.  I don't really like her food.  She does laundry and makes our beds.