the Ambrose family has visitors!

At the beginning of this month, our friends Amanda, Rod and little Mae came through Shanghai on the last leg of their very ambitious global tour which saw them in London, Copenhagen, Madrid, and Shanghai, in no particular order. We all had a great time! We haven't seen each other since Rod and a pregnant Amanda moved home to Australia from London, just before Jason and I got married. So it was a fantastic catch-up.



Mae is nineteen months old now and was great fun. She and Abi definitely enjoyed each other. We even treated Mae to a trip to the 5-storey Shanghai Barbie super-store...so much pink and so little time!

We also managed to work in some good time at the Shanghai world Expo. Something I haven't really been interested in but was completely bowled over by. A lot of the pavilions were AMAZING and the whole experience was definitely not to be missed. These are some photos of the UK pavilion which was definitely the most impressive of all.

The outside is very cool. It looks like a dandelion or spore of some kind. Which is of course what it's meant to be because the whole thing is based on the millenium seed bank that the UK has been building up in Kew Gardens.

This is a shot from inside the pavillion. The spines are poured acrylic and each go from outside straight through the facade to let in light. It's very dramatic.

and at the base of each spine is a seed or cluster of seeds, from each of the species represented in the seed bank back in the UK. It really is amazing.

So...we went through a few of the pavillions, or at least as many that would let us to the front of the line with the kids (hehehe). It made such a difference, i'm tempted to rent out Abi to expo visitors. :)

Here are the 'family portraits' in front of the China pavillion.

As you can imagine, despite Mae's seeming lack of interest, these two girls were very very popular with the chinese visitors. They were photographed by countless people and will probably feature in thousands of holiday picture albums. As you can see by this picture, people weren't shy about getting in for a shot!

And despite the two very tired babies and four tired adults, a good time was had by all!

Ambrose Family in Haikou

Thanks to a Saturday government presentation that Jason needed to give in Haikou, the Ambrose family finally had a weekend out of Shanghai (yes, the irony is not lost on us). So we piled out to the airport and flew to an island called Hainan at the southern tip of China.

Three hours of wrestling a squealing, bouncing Abigail and we were stepping into the tropics of Haikou. We stayed in a nice enough Sheraton beachfront hotel with lovely pools and great gardens and we spent the weekend there without leaving it (except for Jason of course).




We have discovered that Abi loves to swim and splashing around in the swimming pool, and she's not afraid to go underwater with us. She's also didn't mind napping poolside, particularly since she had some company.

So it all went very well until we needed to get home. Due to a number of incidents, we managed to miss our flight by five minutes. Thankfully we had flexible tickets so we could get onto the next one out...five hours later. It wasn't long enough to go back to the hotel and we didn't know anywhere else we could really go, so we settled into the waiting area to wait.

Over the course of five hours, Abi required two naps and two bottles and all but one of the diapers we had with us.



The one positive side of this is that I have been training Abi since birth for 'urban napping' so she wasn't entirely out of sorts with napping on the fly. As long as she has 'jelly piggy' with her, she's pretty much happy to sleep anywhere. Even on a pair of cafe chairs!




Eventually, many hours later, we arrive in Shanghai with Abi's fan club in tow (otherwise known as the other airline passengers). She managed to charm everyone on the flight, despite the ear-splitting squealing stage she is currently going through. As I got up with her to change her in the toilet, no less than twenty people across the plane started waving her arms to get her attention...and Princess Abi gave her loyal subjects some smiles.

Spoon Fed: Attempt #1

A week into month 6 we decided to start with rice cereal. So Sunday we loaded Abi into her highchair and got started. It took quite a bit of time and a computer screen to distract her, but we managed to get nearly a bowlful of soggy rice cereal in her.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, Jason seems to be the only one who can get her to eat. So she'll either only eat food on weekends or her 'ayi' and I will really have to change our approach.

We'll continue to try but I'm not really sure she's getting the hang of it.

Six Months Old

Abigail turned six months old on the 6th of July. We didn't really celebrate but she certainly did, by learning to sit up all by herself!

At her well-baby 6mo checkup she weighed in at a hefty 18.5lb (8.4kg) and measures 26.5" (67cm). Not as big as her cousins (thank goodness!) but at least she can hold her own with the boys in the family.

Strange Sightings 01

When I went back to work two months ago, I decided to start cycling. The weather had gotten warmer (although now it's downright hot!) and after cycling in London, I figured it couldn't be all that different.

And it wasn't...except for one small thing. My ride to work is a whirlwind of strange sights. There are a lot of very strange things that go on on the streets of Shanghai. As as I weave in and out of the slow-moving cars, electric bikes and bicycle-cart things (i'll have to post a picture sometime so that makes sense), I get a front-row seat for some particularly strange moments. So here are the first of my favourite moments, and you can look forward to more.

1. On my way to work, I was cycling past our local market, about a 1/2 block from the apartment. Coming towards me in the wrong direction in the bike lane was a very typical chinese bicycle. A simple city bike with long curved handlebars, standard except for the dozen or so full-feathered chickens hanging by their ankles from the length of the handlebars.

2. Abi and I were walking along our road (Jianguo Lu) and I noticed a woman in her twenties cycling quite hard and moving very slowly past us. She was on a very nice new light-pink fold-up bike. And unfortunately, in spite of the hard work she was putting into her pedalling, she was having a real problem getting up any speed...due to the matching set of training wheels on her bike.

3. 'Chinglish' Classic of the week. A woman walking down the street with a shirt showing the phrase 'Reble Yehl'. Yeehaw...!

Bathtime Rituals

Like a lot of households we have our daily rituals. One of my favourites is bath and bedtime.



First, we spend some time in the bath where Abi practices the kicking she learned in the swimming pool. She also has finally gotten old enough to enjoy her squirting animal bath toys.



Then it's into the bedroom (mood lighting provided of course), where we wrestle around until I finally man-handle a diaper onto her. She's so wiggly now that I've actually had to master putting on diapers upside down. One of my many new skills.





Eventually she is lotion-ed up (it's never too early to practice good skin care!) and wearing a sleeping bag. But that certainly isn't the end of the wriggling. Jelly Cat is of course along for the ride, although Jelly Pig is the sleeping animal of choice (much better size for cuddling during the night).

Negotiation

If you ever wonder how we get around in Shanghai these post-its on our refrigerator may give you a bit of a clue....



Everything we know about Mandarin comes from a book called 'Survival Chinese' and is on post-its strategically located around our house.

Street Dumpling Night at the Ambrose's

On a ladies night out (my first!!) my friends and I were chatting to the young barman over from San Francisco (as you do...) and he mentioned that he had found a great and very cheap dumpling place. After much discussion he eventually worked out that it was called Nan jing something Bao and it was on Jianguo Lu and Taiyuan Lu (our corner!!). So of course xiaolongbao lovers that we are (see explanation later but take my word for it...they are heaven), we immediately planned a dumpling night.



We started at our place with some Abi playtime and then headed out to the street. As you can see, the whole adventure literally did take place on the street. The little shop has one half of the front set up as the steaming area and the other half holds a couple of very very small tables for 'dining in'.




David with Diana and I (his wife Amy is our official photographer for outings and is never in photos). He's a giant in China...much less next to the two shortest Americans in town!

While we waited Abi hung out with Daddy and made a few friends with some local kids and a lady who essentially called Abi a 'piglet baby' in mandarin. If she wasn't such a cute old lady we might have been offended.



explanation as promised...compliments of wikipedia:
Xiaolongbao, also known as soup dumpling,[1] is a type of steamed bun or baozi from eastern China, including Shanghai and Wuxi. It is traditionally steamed in small bamboo baskets, hence the name (xiaolong is literally "small steaming basket").

5 months on

At five months old, Abigail is more entertaining (and demanding) by the day.

She loves to roll onto her belly, and has been for some weeks now, but STILL hasn't managed to figure out how to roll back over! So we spend a lot of time flipping her back over when she gets fussy, only to have her immediately flip right back.

She laughs a lot and LOVES her collection of soft animals. 'jelly piggy' has to go to bed with her now, even though 'jelly cat' will always be the travel favourite. A new addition to the collection is 'roger' the alligator. Thanks Aunt Amy!

Jason's Photography

Here are a few photos of from Jason's photography work we thought you might enjoy.

At 2 months, just before her world tour...

But she wasn't always as cooperative as we'd like!

...and at 4.5 months

Abi's Rocking Crane-Horse

I had the find of the century a week or so ago. My friend and I were walking along the road when I saw a lady walk by with a cart piled high with wicker. On the back were hanging what looked like a rocking horse. So we ran down the street and waved her over (she was walking pulling a giant cart so it sounds more impressive than it was!).


After much negotiation (my mandarin numbers are getting much better and almost useful now), we walked away carrying a bamboo rocking horse.

On getting it home, Jason swears it looks a lot like a 'rocking crane' so it's now the horse-crane. Whatever...she's going to LOVE it!

Family Outing at Red Town

Last Sunday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and had a family outing to 'Red Town'. It's actually an old steel factory complex that has been turned into a group of galleries, a new contemporary art museum, and the Shanghai Sculpture Park.

The Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum has just opened with a great exhibition. There's a nice collection including a few of the same artists we saw at the Saatchi Gallery in London and really liked.

Abi did great. It was he first outing with her newly oriented stroller (pushchair to you brits). She hated having to ride lying down so we set up her chair so she's sitting up and facing forward and she just loves it. Unfortunately so does everyone else so anytime we're out with her everyone and their brother are staring and talking to her. At least now we can hide her under a mosquito net which is definitely required at this point anyway. We even have one on her bed...but i'll have to post a pic of that later. For now, here are a few pictures from our day out.