An Ode to Ze Germans

posted by Alan
click on pictures to see them full sized

Last weekend was Daisy's birthday. I took her on a surprise trip outside of Shanghai, which she will be blogging about sometime in the near (meaning hopefully before 2011) future. Daisy's birthday also always coincides with the first weekend of March Madness basketball. The Madness is no less appreciated over here in China (by me at least). That Kansas St/Xavier game was unreal. It had me giving Daisy gchat play-by-plays of what was happening that she most probably ignored. Anyway, TAKE THAT to everyone who questioned me picking Butler in the Final Four (oh, the rest of the brackets count too?)


Now, on to the subject of this post...Yesterday evening as we sat in a restaurant with some friends for dinner, I started doing a mental headcount. It turned out that there were an astounding nine different country passports among the eleven people at the table. Shanghai is the definition of an international city. As diverse as New York is, the different nationalities don't typically mix on more than a surface level. A nations culture really is made up of it's people and here in Shanghai, you get to know people from different backgrounds on a really personal level. This is a phenomenon that I wasn't fully aware of, but now appreciate and enjoy. My estimation (which in now way represents any official census) of population in Shanghai by country looks like this (not counting Chinese):

1. American
2. Canadian
3. German
4. Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia
5. Korean/Japanese
4. Italian
6. British
7. South American (mainly Brazil)
8. French (I've heard that there are tons of French here, but I haven't met quite so many)

Of all the different nationalities that make up our many friends, I don't think any has been as revealing to us as the Germans. We have a bunch of good friends here that are from Germany, and have met countless others. When I went to the China vs. Germany soccer match last year, thousands of Germans showed up in full force. My impressions of Germany from our friends here are that the people are really easy to make friends with, ask tons of questions, love to laugh and smile and don't take themselves too seriously. German is also a crazy sounding language. So Danke to Andreas, Yvonne, Mirjam, Dominic, Nina, Chris, Daniel, Seoul, Hannah and the rest of our German friends for sharing your lives and culture with us. You're giving your country a good name in my book.

In Malaysia with Dominic and Mirjam; a group of many nationalities

Andreas and Yvonne; German takeover of Shanghai Stadium; everyone's German friend Dirk Nowitzki (no, i don't know him personally)

We also recently went on a double date with our friends Grayson and Jessica (non-Germans from America). We went indoor Go-Karting up here in Shanghai. Whoever built this place must have just watched The Legend of Ricky Bobby because this place was more decked out than Talladega Nights. They went all out with the decorations, from genuine NASCAR racing suits to winners podiums and F1 cars. Really fun and really fast go-karts too. But the 70RMB ($10 USD) per 8-minute run price was a little steep.



In other news, Daisy's birthday also marks the first day of Spring. Meaning Scooter Riding Season (cheaper, but equally as much fun as Go-Karting) begins....

Response to comments:
Julia - You're welcome to come over anytime. XuHui is cooler than Jing'An anyway.
Johnny - It's gone by fast, but we've gone through and done so much in the past year, it feels like we've been here for ages.
Kristen - Thanks! By the way, I had some Thin Mints a couple weeks ago. Yes, in China. mmmm.
Corey - Rent is about $730 USD per month. Why, looking for a place?
Kev - No makeshift door this time. This apartment comes with a real one. We're moving on up.

Our New Apartment

posted by Alan
click on the pictures to see them full sized


As we come up on 1 year (April 16th) in Shanghai, the lease on our apartment was also coming to an end. It was a great starter apartment. We liked that the building was pretty old and has alot of old, local Shanghainese people that have been living here for a long time and all know each other and has a very community-like feel to it. It's also in an AWESOME location, very convenient and central to the rest of the city. But it was also a little small. Because of the location, alot of our friends liked to come over to hang out and it wasn't suitable to fit too many people at once.



So we let our real estate lady know we were interested in finding something bigger but in the SAME location. If it wasn't on the same corner that we lived on, we didn't want to move. She said she had some places to show us the next night in the building right next to ours. Well, here we are 2.5 weeks later all moved in to our new apartment. It's pretty amazing how spontaneous things can happen in China. This keeps life here pretty exciting.



Our new apartment now has an open dining/living room area which makes it much more comfortable for people to gather. It also has a true separate guestroom/study. In our old apartment, our living room doubled as our guestroom. It also comes with some really good furniture. Most rental apartments in Shanghai come furnished, but you're often stuck with the furniture that's in there, whether you like it or not. Our new landlord even let us pick out a new dining room table. The only thing I'll miss about the old place is the view. We were on the top floor (25) there and had an amazing view of the city. Now we're on the 8th floor and the view is far less spectacular. But at least we have a shorter elevator ride.

Thanks to our friends who helped us move, it went pretty easily. We wasted no time in using the new apartment, as my boy from high school, Jonlin, was in town and staying with us AS we moved. So our first night in the new apartment also featured our first houseguest.

110 in Shanghai. Jenny, Me, Daisy, Jonlin, Mike and Melissa
We're really thankful for the new apartment. Our hope and vision for this place is to provide a comfortable and warm place for our friends here in Shanghai who are all away from home. It's also to provide a great place to stay for all of you who come visit. We're ready to start taking reservations.






Click here to see some more pictures of our New Apartment: Pictures of New Apartment

Ma Bu Li = 马布里 = Marbury

posted by Alan
click on pictures to see them full sized

Some of you sports fans might know that former Olympian and NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury has joined the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association. He's had some off the court issues that has derailed his NBA career and signed to play in China in order to market his sneaker brand. He came about 3 weeks ago and instantly became the best player in the league and probably the best player to ever play in China.

The CBA is China's version of the NBA. Yao Ming got his start in the CBA playing for his hometown Shanghai Sharks. Each CBA team is allowed 2 foreigners and they are only allowed to play a maximum of 3 quarters per game. Europe is the most common destination for players who aren't good enough to make the NBA, because players can still make ALOT of money and live like superstars. BUT, there are some brave souls (or just less-skilled ones) that come to make a living playing basketball here in China. The level of basketball is VERY low here and the most a foreign player can make is only about $400K USD per year (still alot, but not for a pro baller). But the NBA IS wildly popular in China and the people here do appreciate having a player of that stature coming here to play.



Anyway, when my friends and I heard, we immediately looked up the Shanghai Sharks' schedule and got tickets for when Marbury was coming to town. 150RMB (about $21 USD) for court level seats. Marbury was definitely the main draw, but it turned out to be a good game as well. The skill and athleticism of the foreigners (Marbury and former-NBAer, Maurice Taylor for Shanxi vs. former college star, John Lucas Jr. and some 7-foot beast named Garret Silar for Shanghai) was way above the level of the Chinese players as you can see from the box scores below. Especially the ridiculous first quarter scores. Take a guess as to which numbers the foreigners are.

#33 Stephon Marbury & #2 Maurice Taylor

In the end, it ended up being a pretty close game, which means the last 6 minutes of the game became 2-on-2. It was really cool to see an NBA superstar playing up close and all the way over here in China. He's still really quick and his body control and strength were still there. The Chinese guys guarding him didn't stand a chance.I can't imagine he'll be playing here for very long. He's always been a bit of an outside the box thinker and more open to less conventional ways of doing things, but it can't be easy playing here after playing among the best in the world.


Click here to see some more pictures of Marbury in China and his game in Shanghai: Marbury Album

Response to comments:
E-Shyh - Glad ur comin back to China, but come back to Shanghai! Anna needs someone to crack up at her insanity.
Angela - I've tried the "special meat" before. Twice. And it's delicious.
Jen - Kids fly for free before 2 years old. Take advantage. haha. congrats to you and Will by the way if we didn't mention it before.
Uncle Willie and Aunt Ellen - Thanks for checking out the blog! The movie makers were really accurate with those mountains. We're ready for you guys to come visit anytime!
Calvin - China has incredible landscapes. We can't wait to see and share more of it.

The Most Beautiful Village in China

posted by Alan
click on the pictures to see them full-sized
click on the link at the bottom to see a full photo album

So our goal for this trip was adventure, rugged travelling and incredible scenery and that's exactly what we got. The 20 hour train ride to Hunan was brightened by some good conversation, new Chinese friends and a constant barrage of New Years Eve firework displays in the countryside as we rode by. It was a pretty unique experience. It was Myself, Daisy and our friends Beverly(NJ) and Nikita(Clifton, NJ by way of Jamaica).

Part 1 - Pandora

We took the train directly to the city of Zhang Jia Jie (张家界), a mid sized city in Western Hunan province that is surrounded by mountain ranges and is host to the famous Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park. Our plan was to find our hostel tucked away inside the park and spend two days exploring the trails and ridiculously shaped mountains. Yes, these are the mountains that the Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora from the movie Avatar were inspired by. Looking at the peaks from above with a layer of fog and mist, it really did look like the mountains were floating just like in the movie. It was a great few days of extreme cold, no running water and mountain hiking.

Part 2 - The Village
After two nights on the mountain, we packed our bags and made the journey from ZJJ to a place that we found only mentioned on a few online travel blogs. Described as "the most beautiful village in china" and "a scene from a fairy tale," the scenery just became more and more amazing as our bus made its way through the Hunan countryside. Buildings and people gave way to distant mountains and layers of green farming terraces. The village of De Hang(德 夯)is a Miao minority village built into a mountain valley and is a true hidden treasure of China. It's a farming town of about 500 people and numerous cows, chickens, ducks and pigs roaming around. Without a doubt, the most quaint, beautiful and peaceful place I've been to in China.

We checked into our family run guest house and spent four days trekking mountain trails, eating local Hunanese food, enjoying the quaintness of the village and getting to know the locals. Daisy couldn't stop saying how much she loved being there while playing with the local children and their fireworks, dodging cows and their droppings and really relaxing. We were even "treated" to the annual Chinese New Year festival that brought 10,000 people from all over Hunan to the village for the day to eat, play games and celebrate their traditional Miao culture.


On our final night in De Hang, we went to our favorite little restaurant for dinner where we were now friends with the owners. As we were eating, we heard what sounded like a movie playing from the village square. We were also wondering why there we no kids running around. We finished eating and walked over to the square, where someone had set up a large screen and the locals were watching the new movie 'Confucious' starring Chow Yun Fat. Of the incredible things we saw on this trip, the scene in the picture below was my favorite. I realized that while the natural wonders of this earth are awe-inspiring, its the people of and the communities that we build that are the most lasting. What the people in that village have is true community and it was beautiful and heartwarming to see.

So, we're back in the Hai after a tiring, cold, dirty (none of us showered the entire trip) and totally satisfying trip. As Beverly put it, it made her "fall in love all over again with rural China, reading, and train travel."

If you'd like to hear more about our trip, feel free to ask us anytime, or you can just take a look at the pictures (fully captioned!) here: HUNAN 2010 PICTURE ALBUM

Response to comments:
Lin - Pictures are there for ur viewing pleasure. Why live vicariously? Come back to Asia.
Eric - which eric is this? And yes, we were in Pandora.

Hunan for the Holidays

posted by Alan
click on pictures to see them full size


So you might have seen Daisy's gmail status this past week, which read "like the week before Christmas." Chinese New Year is easily the biggest holiday of the year here. For the past week, people have been busy preparing to travel back to their hometowns to spend the week with their families. For those of us that don't have family out here, this week means travel time. For the last Golden Week (there are three in China) in October, we went international to Malaysia. And just a few weeks ago, we made a trip overseas back home to New York. For this Golden Week, we wanted to do something IN China. We were looking for something not too touristy and a little off the beaten path. When outsiders think of China, it seems that people tend to think of pollution, crowds and chaos. Unfortunately, the natural beauty of this country is often overlooked. And there is ALOT of it.
DeHang, "The Most Beautiful Village in China"

We decided on a trip to Hunan province, located towards the southern coast of central China. Our first stop will be to Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park, famous for its jagged, scenic mountains. So scenic, that one of the peaks was officially renamed after the mountains in Avatar. We'll spend a few days hiking and backpacking around the park before we head to the mountain village of DeHang, described by one travel blog as 'the most beautiful village in China.' It's been described as the real life version of those Chinese scroll paintings. We'll stay in guesthouses with the locals and eat spicy Hunanese food. I can't wait to get back to rural China. All it will take is a 20 hour train ride. Check back next week for pictures and stories.

Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park

i DO wish that we could be here for the opening night's festivities of Chinese New Year. We've been told that the entire city is impressively lit up with fireworks until 4 or 5 AM and the streets are covered in the red fireworks paper. And if you refer back to this or this blog post, you'll remember that we have an ideal view for the spectacle. Even as I type this, I can hear and see fireworks exploding and its the night BEFORE Chinese New Years Eve. All around the city there are tables set up with massive fireworks for sale. It is truly a pyromaniacs dream.

This guy has some big plans; fireworks and DVD's (right downstairs from our apartment too)


Well, whatever you're celebrating this weekend (Chinese New Year, Valentine's, NBA All Star Weekend, birthday (Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!), Winter Olympics) we wish we could celebrate it with you wherever you are. One thing I learned in all of my travels is that building relationships, family and sharing joy with people you love is universal.