Digging to China

It took a 13.5 hour plane ride and a grueling stop-and-go 2 hour drive from the airport, but I arrived safe and sound to my new abode here in Shanghai. So on my first full day, what did I do? Well, I started by putting the boys on the bus to school (it picks them up at a brutal 7:20 every morning…luckily this morning I was up at 6 all on my own!). After spending a bit of time unpacking I went with Mr. Wu (the family’s driver) to…IKEA…!! And while Ikea is pretty much the same as it is in the states – the first floor is all displays, the bottom floor is all of the stuff, and it winds around like crazy on both floors -- there are two big differences I noticed: first, that there are tons of security guards, they were scattered all over the place! Second, Ikea is bumpin’ here! I went at 9am on a Tuesday morning, only to learn that the restaurant opens at 9, but the store part doesn’t open until 10. But at 9 in the morning, when the store wasn’t even open yet, there were tons of people, milling around, eating breakfast, chatting, Ikea seems like quite a social scene. I may have to go back and meet some new people…

I also took myself on a little walk down the street to huge shopping area of town to buy a voltage converter. The place I ended up was an indoor mall, but it was completely full of kiosks; 4 floors of kiosks selling everything electronic -- from video surveillance equipment to ipod ear buds to computers themselves and much, much more! And all I had to do was find one where I could successfully communicate that I needed “a voltage converter…from 110 to 220.” That’s definitely in my phrase book. In the end I managed to figure out that the power cord my computer has is a universal voltage cord; which meant that I didn’t need anything. Luckily I got a rocking walk out of it, and a bubble tea drink to boot (I opted not to have lunch at KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks…all of which were in the mall).

And now my early morning/late night/the international date line are all catching up with me! Luckily, there’s tomorrow (not to mention the 2 months after) for me to visit the park at the end of the block, the French Concession, and so much more!

Oh! And this weekend I’m going to Hong Kong, and then onto Chengdu, woohoo!