Soooo Sooo Tang...y

Being here in China, I have been reacquainted with a drink from some years ago, Tang. The original Tang is an orange-like flavored drink that was typically made from powder form. Here in China they have both the powder and they have it in liquid form. Man, when I am in the mood for some sweet treat, I turn to my liquid Tang. Tang in the bottle is so over the top Tang compared to any other Tang that I have ever had, after drinking one glass I actually have to check to see if all my teeth are still there. Tang in a bottle here is kind of like when the directions on Tang powder say add 3 scoops to 2 cups of water, but you end up adding 6 scoops to 1 cup of water, that is how potent it is, and it is a complete culinary delight that causes your tongue to jump for joy (and your teeth to beg for mercy). I have already asked my wife to stock up on Tang for me so when the family is in the States and I am here I can go on Tang binges and run around Shanghai on sugary Tang highs, I especially can't wait to try that chewy meat on a stick with my tongue still tingling with that orangy Tang flavor.

As a side note, when my wife and I first got married, she would create a drink called Tang-quila's (copyrighted by the Gerkens family, so if I see it on a menu anywhere, we get royalties). For the drink you just add some Tang powder to some Tequila and one other liquor that will remain nameless for secrecy, put some ice into a blender and watch the magic happen, it is quite the tasty and refreshing drink.

My daughter is not the Messiah

Sorry, it has been a little while since my last post, got bloggers block (actually nothing much has been going on here).

Without approaching being blasphemous (although I might have already done that with my title), my wife and I were talking in bed this morning and Maddie was, as usual, jumping around on the bed and playing. She took one bad hop and landed on my wife awkwardly, this prompted my wife to yell out "Jesus Christ Maddie!!! (as a quick side note, my wife is awesome and rarely...umm...hardly ever blurts out things like that) After hearing the statement, my daughter turns to Renee and say, "I'm not Jesus, I'm a big girl." All too true Maddie, all too true.

Best...so far

The Editor's new CD "An End Has a Start" was released today, and there is no question that this is the best album of 2007 so far (you may ask how I know since it was just released, well I have been listening to the album for the past couple of weeks on their myspace page, so yes, I know).

Yes the lead singer sounds like Interpol's lead singer, I haven't heard much of Interpol's new album, but from what I hear the only comparison is in the sound of the voice of the each band's lead singer, other then that there is really no comparisons. I hate comparing bands to other bands, but to give you an idea as to the music I like, the lead for best CD so far this year was Bloc Party. Note that I am in China and I am not one that is going to spend $300USD's a year buying music so there are certainly other albums out there that I'm sure are great (The Arcade Fire? LCD Soundsystem? Spoon?), but based on what I have heard and bought these two take the cake so far.

Happy Birthday

My wife doesn't want me to talk about her age at home as she has hit a big landmark age wise and she is not that happy about it. Needless to say, posting on the internet for the world to see is not breaking her rule of talking about it at home, so HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY RENEE!!!!!!!

Anyway, I do this so that I can also say that, while she is not the happiest to be turning 30, I try to tell her that right now in her life she is in better shape, better family life, and a better overall life then she was during much of her 20's, so this should be a great thing for her. Renee you are the best wife ever and your 30's will be 10 times better then your 20's, I will make sure of that.

Do nut go there

This past Saturday we did go to a new donut place in town called the Donut Hut. Actually contrary to my catchy title, it wasn't that bad. The donuts were pretty sweet and a little small, the owner or manager said that they bought their donut machine from the same supplier that supplies the machines for Krispy Kreme, not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing. We got 6 donuts in a range of different flavors - chocolate covered, one with chocolate and nuts, regular, one with chocolate rice crispies (by far the best), Oreo, one with strawberry filling and icing, all of which were decent, but nothing was so spectacular that we would go out of our way to go back. Our strawberry donut came with a bug in the icing, but I am not one of those people that gets mad (they did have their doors open for a grand opening type of thing so it is excusable in this case), I tried to discreetly bring it to the managers attention and she gave us two more donuts at no extra charge.

Anyway, when new places open up that bring western products to China, we are always reminded that the food here will never be like the food back home, a subtle letdown each time.

I am a little confused

As mentioned in the previous post, we had friends in town that stayed with us for a couple of days. I took Tuesday and Wednesday off from work in order to spend time with them, so today was the big day to get back to work and let me say I was just confused this morning. Things didn't feel right, it was just odd. I have come to the conclusion that it really stinks to take a couple of days off in the middle of the week and then go back to work for a couple of days. I so wanted it to be the weekend, yet it felt like a Monday and it is a Thursday. Needless to say my internal clock is a little confused and I had to fight myself to hop into the shower to get ready for the day, but I am here now and things seem to be going well. Just don't think I would do something like this again.

Friends from Far Away

This week we had some friends in town from the US. We had a really good time spending time with them and having our kids all play together. They have a song who is basically right in between Maddie and Jacob and both Maddie and Jacob had a lot of fun playing with him. It wasn't the best weather, but we were still able to make due.

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off so that we could go around and see some different parts of Shanghai. On Tuesday we left the kids with our Ayi and did the Pudong Riverwalk, took the ferry over to Puxi and then walked to Yu Yuan. There the skies opened up and it rained and rained, luckily we had our umbrellas and were ready for the rain. The rain was actually a great thing because they kept it from being too crowded and it kept the temperature at a good level. We bought some little trinkets and art and overall had a good time. We went home and were able to relax for the rest of the day.

On Wednesday we went to the Science and Technology fakes market where they did a bunch of shopping to get gifts for friends and family. We went home and tried to go to the indoor pool in our complex, unfortunately they wanted to charge $10 per person, which was quite the ripoff, so we said thanks but no thanks. We then left the kids with our Ayi and went out to dinner. Our friends are planning on spending another 2 weeks in Taiwan, where they would be indulging in all sorts of Chinese food so they wanted to try to get a western meal. We went to a restaurant called Blue Frog, which I had heard mixed reviews.

I decided to get the Cheese Steak Sandwich, which was a special for the summer. Let me start by saying that I went to college in Philly and know what an authentic Philly cheesesteak is (and lover the authentic, Whiz wit), so I want to clarify that they are not saying that they are trying to create a Philly cheesesteak, rather they were just trying to do a cheese steak sandwich. I am normally very very hesitant to get any kind of cheesesteak outside of the philly area, cause they for the most part are not any good. This sandwich consisted of thinly sliced sirloin (clearly not trying to compete with Philly), gruyere cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms on a fresh baguette. It was the combo of all these things that attracted my eye and let me say, it was awesome. Again, nothing like a Philly cheesesteak, not even in the comparison realm, but this thing had some great meat, the gruyere was a great compliment along with the grilled onions and mushrooms (they were a bit salty, but not too bad). Shanghai and sandwiches, let along Shanghai and a cheesesteak, definitely do not belong together, but in this instance I was pleasantly surprised, so thanks to Blue Frog for a nice evening with friends.

Let's eat some...

I say Crapple Sauce...my wife says Corple Sauce. The stuff that he is eating is a homemade mixture of corn and apple sauce, so my wife's word for the stuff is more right on point, I just like the sound of Crapple Sauce. Actually, Jacob really enjoys the stuff and has been eating it for dinner over the past couple of weeks. It doesn't look too bad, that is if you don't mind the look of regular apple sauce with little pieces of corn floating on through. Last night while feeding it to him, he flung some on me, this resulted in one line I never thought I would say in my life, "Man...I got Crapple Sauce on my shirt."

Double Dutch

Last night my daughter found the knitting measuring tape and unravelled it to make it into a jump rope. I am not sure where she got her excitement for jump roping, but she is so obsessed that every little string or rope like object is referenced to be a jump rope. She proceeded to hand my wife one end of the "jump rope" and hand me the other end. This was her first time actually trying to jump rope so naturally as we brought the rope around for her to jump over she just stood there and had a delayed reaction to jumping rope. When she did decide to jump it was a kind of awkward skip/jump type of motion that brought out the fact that she had never done this before.

It eventually came to the point where she wanted me to jump rope, so she took my end and my wife and her started to swing. They first smacked me right in the head cause my daughter is not that tall. Eventually it made it over my head and was slapped to the ground. When it hit the ground it came to a stop, so I, very awkwardly jumped/skipped over the rope that was lying on the ground, it was quite an embarrassing leap over the "jump rope." My wife proclaimed, "I can see where Maddie gets her form!!" (yes it was that bad). At that point a UK friend of ours who was there began to laugh, then Maddie, who was very excited that I jumped over the rope exclaimed, "Good Job Dad." Well this just made our UK friend burst out into more laughter, mainly because it was not a good job at all and also because apparently the phrase "Good Job" is not that common in the UK, especially when you didn't do a good job. In fact as a cultural difference, I guess we in the US tend to us this phrase as an encouragement, where the British would hardly ever use it cause they are much more into lifting themselves up rather then encouraging others. What a nice cultural lesson that came out of my awkward jump roping.

What's wrong here....

I think I blogged about this before, but I finally got around to taking a picture of the DVD, can you see what is wrong? I agree that she is the fairest one of the mall.

I am not Lance Armstrong

After my ride to the ocean, I decided that it would be nice to go out each morning and do some long distance sprints around Century Park, which is not too far away from our apartment. Monday morning was my first ride. I noticed that basically the people that were around Century Park were either running or walking for exercise, some were doing their morning Tai Chi, and then you had your people on their bikes heading to work. Now I was so excited cause I loved blowing past the other people on their bikes. I felt like I should just march over to Paris and enter the Tour De France...might as well hand me a yellow jersey right now.

This morning I was, again, enjoying blowing by the locals on the bike when I was humbled. I was going at a pretty good pace when all of the sudden I feel this rush of wind come blowing by me and I am looking at the backside of another fellow bike rider. Seriously, he had legs that rival the trunks of baby redwoods, and I think he was actually going faster then some cars. Needless to say, my dreams of a yellow jersey were shattered and I was brought back to reality that I am truly just a casual biker...Oh well.

As a side note, I was nearing the end of my ride and was woozy from my ride, I rounded a corner and all the sudden a beam of light from the sky was shining on this object that was all too familiar to me. It was an American Football, and yes it was sitting right there in the bushes for me to take back home. As I paced closer and closer my excitement grew only to come crashing back down when I realized that it was the top of a fire hydrant. I guess it was a good thing I didn't reach my hand down to try to swipe it while riding as that could have been somewhat of a bloody mess.

Oh, now I Sea

I heard through the grapevine that there is a group of people that bicycle ride from around where I live in Pudong to the East China Sea (the sea wall that lines it to be specific), so this past Sunday morning a friend of mine and me ventured out to see if we could join them. On our approach to the meeting site we were past by this guy in all out bicycle riding gear going at an insane pace, my friend turned to me and said, "I hope he's not riding in this group." Well, it ended up that this guy was the group leader, and after one of those "what did I get myself into moments" (we introduced ourselves and he said, "Great to have you guys here, got air in your tires, you're gonna lose some lb's today!!!" I hope all you readers agree that this is an awkward introduction), we decided that between the two of us, at least we can keep pace with each other. The team leader's name was Bill, and you might imagine, he is quite passionate about cycling. He at least re-assured us that there is a slow group that we can keep up with, that definitely helped.

Anyway, we headed out from Jinqiao at about 7:30am, we rode on some main rodes, then headed into some smaller village type roads that had some great views of the China of old. We arrived at the ocean at about 8:30 (all in all, the trip is about 45KM's or about 30 miles round trip). I was really excited to see the ocean, but was very disappointed to notice that it was very brown and really only used as a shipping route for freighters. It is cool to be able to say that I rode there and I will probably join the group again (I was easily able to keep up with the "slow group" so no worries there), but it stinks that seeing the ocean is not that great of a thing, I mean no beach, no people, just a wall and lots of freighters.