Just as our exit from Sydney was chaotic, so was our arrival in Shanghai. The work continued. We were in a hotel for a little under a week before we moved into our house. On the same day that we moved into our house the kids had their first day of school. Once we left the hotel buffet I needed to figure out how to feed my family :)
Ethan took this picture while we were out taking the kids for a walk around our new neighbourhood.
Clara entertaining herself making things from random items in the hotel room.
Swimming in the hotel pool. By the time we were finished at the hotel I was ready to be back in the space of a house, but sometimes it would be nice to have the easy access to a pool and everyday breakfast buffets.
Picture taken by Ethan of the Shanghai skyline. This is from the hotel window.
Moving-in day. We spent the first few months using rental furniture. Our shipment didn't arrive until December. We had an air shipment that was supposed to arrive in November, but it didn't end up getting to us until after the sea shipment! Our air shipment was randomly selected to go through a customs inspection/quarantine, so it was held up. In the end there wasn't anything in it of concern.
Clara on a rental chair. There were people all over our house bringing in furniture and unpacking things. I decided to speed up the process by setting up Ethan's room - putting on the sheets, unpacking the air purifier etc. While I was doing this there were other workers in each of the other rooms doing similar things. A month later I realised that Ethan's air purifier was quieter than all of the other air purifiers in the house so I went to investigate. I opened up Ethan's purifier and all seemed fine in there. As I went to every other room I discovered that every single other filter was still wrapped in plastic! The worker who had installed all of them had made a big show of demonstrating that they all worked, but omitted the important step of actually unwrapping the filters.
Clara eating Yang's Dumplings. Yum!! Clara loves dumplings.
Ethan and Erica in their school Summer uniforms.
Clara walking up the street to our house. Our compound is 'America' ie - the architecture. There are other areas with different themes. In the compound next to us there is Spain, England and France.
What my grocery receipts look like now.
What an Ikea receipt looks like when you have just moved to another country and you don't have your things yet. Also there are 5 bathrooms in our house and 90% of the cabinets have no shelves (that is definitely a first world problem). Despite the superfluous number of bathrooms, we have no pantry, so ended up converting the space under the stairs. We had to buy a lot of stackable containers and shelving units. That total is approximately $500 Australian. Actually not too bad given the length of the receipt. Ikea is cheaper here.
Ethan in his happy place - anywhere he can kick a ball. Ethan trialled for the rep team here and was offered a spot on the team. About two weeks later his knee started bothering him again (after trialling in athletics). We went to an orthopaedic surgeon who was able to diagnose the problem and promptly instructed Ethan to stop playing soccer and doing athletics for the time being. A part of the bone in Ethan's knee had died (there is a little hole there). He has to rest it to allow cartilage to grow in there. He has incurred this injury via lots of sport that 'jolts' his joints - especially long jump. If his knee doesn't heal on it's own he will need surgery. Ethan was out of sport completely for a few months. School offered him a spot on a swim team, but the only space they had left was the girl's swim team. Ethan isn't old enough yet to think that is a cool idea. He is now able to play soccer again as goal keeper, but no athletics yet. He will have another MRI in May, but may take until late in the year to be fully healed.
A lovely note for Erica in her first week of school.
Clara wondering up our street. The cart in the background is driven by our garbage man. The rubbish is collected everyday. The garbage man does all of the sorting and I assume recycling. Sometimes his cart can be stacked very high with boxes. We put a pair of shoes that Ethan had grown out of into the rubbish and the next day our garbage man was wearing them :)
Clara doing some cooking. We had to be creative with limited cooking equipment.
Comments