Livin' the City Life

I don't consider myself a city person by any means. And I certainly never thought I'd be living in the fourth largest city in the world. But we have embraced our new surroundings and are taking advantage of the opportunities that it brings.

This weekend we enjoyed some family time since Mark was in Korea until late Thursday night and will be leaving again this Friday for India. On Friday, he worked from home and was able to take Morgan to/from school. She loved that! After dinner, he took her to the pool.

We didn't have our driver come back to the house until late Saturday evening. So we relied on our bikes to take us around town. Late that morning, we rode about 2 miles to Thumb Plaza. An outdoor area with several restaurants and shops. We had lunch at Pizza Hut....Morgan's request. It was actually quite nice. A very different set up than what we are used to in the states. They have several different menu items as well as their usual pizza, which tasted good and even had sauce. (We've had pizza here in china where they just put a few chopped tomatoes on the crust and call it sauce.) After lunch, we walked around a bit before heading home. Molly loves her bike seat so much that she fell asleep before we got home.

While Molly was napping, and Mark was well on his way, Morgan and I walked a few blocks away to a strip of shops nearby. We went to a bakery to purchase bread. Bread only lasts a few days here and its not because we are living on sandwhiches. The bread here is fresh, with no preservatives. So unlike in the states, I am not able to buy a loaf of bread and have it last 2 weeks. Therefore, I have to buy several half loaves more frequently. I also freeze them. Next we stopped in a "wet market" to buy some fruit since we were out, then headed home.

We had a sitter come to the house to watch the girls for us so Mark and I could go out to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. Jesse is 15 and lives just a few houses down from us. Morgan was so excited to have her come that she kept asking about her all day. Once our driver arrived and we had the girls all settled in, we went to a nice restaurant, New Heights, on the other side of the river with a water view. We had a window seat, a wonderful warm meal and quiet conversation. A rare occasion these days. Both of us never thought at the beginning of our 7 years that we would be living on the other side of the world. After dinner, we walked across the street and had a drink at another restaurant, M on the Bund, with a fabulous view of the river.

The girls were up early today (Sunday) and so we just mellowed out and lounged around most of the morning. Some friends called and said they were going swimming and would be having lunch by the pool today and asked us to join them and their two young boys. We agreed and had a really fun time. The weather was so nice today (about 53 degrees) that I took Morgan to the outdoor play area while Molly napped. In the evening we rode our bikes to Johnny Moo's for dinner. We went pretty early, but still had to ride home in the dark. Morgan thought this was cool.

This is a very different way of living from we are used to. While I'm not sure I could do this forever...you now what they say..."You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl"....I'm definitely enjoying our "city life".