Jendow vegetarian

Last weekend we joined some friends for dinner at Jendow vegetarian buffet about 10 minutes outside Xujiahui.

Tofu pretending to be beef jerky!! Lots of spices!

Here's a review I wrote for Smart Shanghai:

"The restaurant was a bit tough to find- its really more like 10 minutes outside Xujiahui, a well lit sign welcomes you (but number was not lit, english is tiny, and we passed at first)

After walking about 200 meters through empty cemented area, we found it- large and inviting. There were about 8 buffet tables, japanese style, chinese style, soups, desserts, all well labeled in english and chinese specifying if it had eggs and/or dairy.

For drinks you could mix your own tea, (lavender, mint, peach, etc), Mango smoothies, alcohol "free" beer, qingdao beer. For dinner there was simulated sashimi, and sushi rolls (which I rather liked, and were quite visually convincing!) "beef" and "pork" jerky- hot pot, tofu "eel", tons of mushrooms and veggie dishes to sample and experience.

"Sashimi that had really authentic coloring and fish flavouring

The tofu eel

For dessert a chocolate fondue tower beckoned, not to mention the hagen daz ice cream (4 flavors!), New zealand egg-free ice cream, tarts, pastries, mousse, tiramisu.... need I go on?

Our party of 6 tried as many dishes as we could. Not sure how the "enzyme" shooters went down?? They insisted on collecting the bill and such at 8pm- it seems they close down by 9pm? Next to a temple, there were several monks there, otherwise the place was pretty empty. Bring your coat when going to the restroom. The service was good and the presentation was wonderful. Its 168rmb per person- all you can eat and drink, so a bit pricey ($25 USD) but a really interesting experience.

Snowy city at night

The view from our apt at nighttime. The sky is that color from light pollution...gah

That tall building in the center is where my office is!

Qingpu/Sheshan- anniversary

We headed to Sheshan, erg what ended up being Qingpu for a night away from home for our 3rd anniversary. It was a nice break from the cabin fever of CNY (cooped up for 1 wk w/o ayi, snow, or Pizza to go) It was quite in the middle of nowhere, about 10 minutes from the mega mills outlet ("This almost feels like America!). We had a nice lake-side view from our room. 

Swimming is awesome when you are 7 months pregnant!!! I felt so weightless! Aaaah. We got burgers, watched some cable TV (another treat), and spent one evening not talking about budget, baby stuff, and work drama. It was great! And the next day we woke up to an awesome brunch, then walked around the lake, only to find an library with English magazines, and we sat reading by the lake- so peaceful! They even had a designy magazine, Surface, alongside the standard, Times, Newsweek, english reads.

In the future, we noted we could take the bus from the end of Line 2 to the hotel- about a 25 minute ride, and pretty much a straight shot, passing the outlets. We also learned that "au ta let ta" Outlets means still really expensive stores, all bunched together with only starbucks, kfc, or MCD's to eat. The newer mall branch had NOTHING to eat. NOTHING. not even a 7-11... and there were about 30 people in line at Starbucks, line out the door and into the cold. 

We had a good time! I was glad that baby let me sleep too. 

test post

Testing out email blogger, so I can post via even without a VPN. Take that, Firewall of China.

7 months and counting

Since China ushered in a new Premier a few months ago, the entire city and country had heightened security, both in person and virtually. In addition to the typical firewall (facebook, blogs, google docs) They fully blocked all of Google at times, and many VPN services including our own. After 2 wks stateside and many hours trying to troubleshoot the great firewall of China, my personal tech warrior T got my VPN going again! For a while I was wondering how long we could stay in China- with the internet being my gateway for work (product research, sharing images with clients, etc) I questioned how much longer I could go. There were days I couldn't send or received emails, except through Yahoo, my spam acct from some 15 years ago...

And here we are! Me and baby. 20 pounds more, trotting through the gray cold city, dodging dog poop and wondering when spring will arrive.

I can finally let out a sigh of relief! After many phone calls, emails with health insurance, hospitals, doctors, we can really focus and pray for our little one, knowing at least the medical service side of things will be ok. We had an ordeal going through 3 international clinic/hospitals talking to 4 doctors. 

baby!

Parents!

Now we spend our evenings going thru stacks of baby/parent/for dummies books learning all sort of interesting, semi-gross and amazing things about how God created bodies to birth. Wow! I have never been so in awe of the human body as a work of design, engineering and art all rolled into one!

the most amazing cake i've ever seen

On of my friend's had a big joint birthday with 3 other people (whom we didn't know) and they had this awesome cake made by the team at the Westin hotel.

It was huge- and had a little house for each person decorated with things they liked- basketballs! The Golden Gate bridge was depicted along with JW marriont (Shanghai), World financial center (Aka Handle building), and pearl tower. In the back are signs showing their favorite hangouts, and there was also a huge cookie of an iphone showing their wi-chat icons and birth dates. And yes- we did eat it!!!

me, birthday girl Mary, Coco, and Laurie

Our little one

This is our little one, growing in my belly. He's already been all over australia, shanghai, and soon will visit America.

We have been praying for our little one for the past 4 months. Its been an adventure - previous the pregnancy I had a mystery condition and was told we may not be able to have kids- ever. Or other not-so-nice possibilities. We are thankful for our healthy baby and look forward to his debut next spring!

So far, the morning sickness has dissipated (after a boat trip on the great barrier reef), road trips and airsickness. He is moving now- kicking and shifting- usully when I've been sedentary for much too long, or cooking at the stove...?

It took us a while to share our new for various reason, one of which was we didn't have a normal ultrasound to show... our doc kept giving us awkward or x-rated images! haha ha We're in an "international" hospital but most of the staff are local Chinese who speak english. Did you know that since its the year of the dragon that many Chinese families have been having their kids this year? Like twice as many? to be fair, our hospital quoted us their number of local patients doubled this year- not sure if its like that across the board, but it was near impossible to get into any other local hospital.