The last couple of weeks before moving were a madly busy time - as they usually are with any move. School in Shanghai started while we were there and we gave the kids the option of attending. Clara and Erica chose to wait until they reached the new school in India. Ethan very much wanted to attend school in Shanghai and spend a little more time with his friends.
Clara at our house after everything had been packed-up and cleaned. The removalists managed to fit everything into a 40 foot container - phew.
Our last picture taken outside of the house as we left to move into a hotel.
I also snapped a night-time picture from the backyard looking into the house, as we were nearing the end.
Clara got to spend a lot of time with one of her besties, Nicole. Nicole's Mum helpfully offered to have Clara play very often while I was overseeing the move. As you can probably tell from the above picture those two are like two peas in a pod!
In the salon together.
There was a farewell with our ward friends.
Erica used to spend a lot of time at her close friend Taylor's home. Sometimes they even had double (and from memory triple?) sleep-overs. They had a last sleep-over in the week before we left. Then Taylor was allowed to take a day off school to join us (the girls) in some last adventures around Shanghai.
We went up the Shanghai Tower. Those two are also like two peas in a pod! All of the kids had great friends in Shanghai. It was hard for them to leave. Taylor was in both Erica's school class and Church class.
One last visit to the Disney Store.
The Pearl Tower.
With The Bund in the background.
Eating at TGI Fridays - not a particularly Chinese experience, but the kids were very happy with their milkshakes.
Shanghai was very good to us and we will for sure miss living there. We lived in a great area (Jinqiao) with the children's school very close by. They were able to (fairly) safely ride bikes around the streets. There were many friends close by. We loved our Church Branch. We really enjoyed the opportunities to travel around China. If we had stayed longer we would have done even more domestic travel, because there is so much to see within the country. I will miss learning and practising my mandarin at every opportunity (I'm already starting to forget words!). I will miss hearing the children use their mandarin. Before we left I went to the markets with Erica and felt like a very proud Mum as I watched her negotiate with a stall-owner, then tell him his price was too high and she was not interested (all in Mandarin). Of course there were some difficulties, but overall we really enjoyed our time in China.
David has already returned to Shanghai for work. He managed to fly in on a day when it snowed! (which doesn't happen very often in Shanghai). He said he felt freezing this time. He has restocked us on some of our favourite foods that we can't find in India (actually Japanese foods ha!) and said hello to everybody for us.
Hopefully the rest of us will also get to visit Shanghai again at some point - the kids are super keen to do this. We are still in the Hong Kong temple district, so there is some chance. Although as is the nature of expat communities - some of our friends have already moved on to other places. Our ayi (who Clara LOVED) has returned to her home province (Shandong) and plans to do missionary work for her Church soon (different Church from ours).
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