Get Fit, Play Darts

During a recent employee health check, it was brought to our HR department’s attention that our staff falls on the unhealthy side of the Shanghai average. As a response to get our employees in shape, our HR department organized a month's worth of activities to promote fitness. It’s always interesting for me to see a Chinese interpretation of corporate initiatives such as this. In my mind, a great way to improve staff health would be to provide gym membership discounts, pass out nicorette patches to the countless staff that smoke constantly, or organize a company run. What actually happened was a series of competitions that included the following:

See how many times a shuttlecock can be bounced on a badminton racket for 2 minutes...

Darts (which was won by yours truly.....I guess all those bar games really do pay off)...

Bounce a huge, birdlike hacky-sack with your feet for two minutes...

Badminton (the only event that actually made me break a sweat...kind of)

And the ever popular workout, Tug of War...

As you may have noticed, with the exception of the badminton, all events took place in our building's underground garage. The venue was less than ideal, considering the constant exhaust smell and frequent car alarms being set off. Fortunately, people barely noticed, as it wasn't much different than the traffic and honking filled streets of Shanghai. While I have a feeling the month of activities won't cause a huge reduction in our company's health care premiums, it sure was a lot of fun. And thanks to my fluke-ish dart competition win, my Chinese colleagues not only point and stare at me with admiration when I walk through the halls, but I am also the prize winner of a brand new backpack to hold all my 'fitness' gear (darts, ping pong paddle, etc.).

One Night in Bangkok...

One of the benefits of living in China is instead of having an annual Labor Day holiday, they have an annual Labor Week holiday in May. In order to avoid the congested Chinese tourist spots, we headed down to Thailand.







Our one night in Bangkok (ok, it technically was two) was surprisingly relaxing and not nearly as scandalous as the classic 80's song suggests. The traffic is just as bad, if not worse than Shanghai's, but the air seemed cleaner and the city was not filled with a proliferation of car horn honking. We spent the day cruising up and down the Chao Praya river seeing the Grand Palace and several of the Wats.

Plenty of traveling monks made the pilgrimage to the Grand Palace. Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country. These guys were a big hit and had a crowd of picture snapping tourists (like us) eager to capture their group photo.

In an interesting contradiction to their religious majority, Thailand also is famous for its hard partying nightlife. Here, Tiffany tours the infamous "Cowboy Street", named after an American soldier named Cowboy who moved to Thailand after the Vietnam War to open a bar. The street now houses 25-30 raucous bars that blare music well into the wee hours of the night. I suppose the locals figure that you should feel free to misbehave, just be aware that karma will make you pay for it later!






We visited the beautiful Jim Thompson house, a collection of classic Thai architecture and southeast Asian art brought together by the mysterious Jim Thompson, an ex-CIA agent who lived in Thailand Jim is credited for developing the global market for Thai silk, and just disappeared one day in the late 1960's. To this day numerous conspiracy theories abound regarding his whereabouts.




Here we are in the Golden Buddha temple. As you can tell by the fact that only the top of Tiffany's head made it into the picture, the Golden Buddha is huge! Tiffany barely measures two toes high. All along the wall in front of the Buddha were buckets into which visitors dropped coins for good luck. Tiffany hogged most of them and secured about 75% of our combined good luck for herself.




Next stop, Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. We specifically travelled there to visit the Elephant Nature Park, which is sort of a rest & retirement home for elephants. In Thailand small villages might each own an elephant, and that elephant might be their major source of income, whether through logging work, transporting goods, or giving rides to tourists. Unfortunately, this results in some very tired, overworked elephants. An amazing Thai woman named Lek opened this park and said, "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled massive elephants..." and either buys the elephants, or rents them, and actually pays villages the equivalent of what their elephant would earn, just so the elephants can rest, recover, or even give birth. The park has received a lot of international coverage, and recently hosted Meg Ryan, who filmed a documentary on the park. The program is staffed by plenty of volunteers, including day volunteers like ourselves. We had the unique opportunity to spend a day in the life of an elephant "mahoot", which is what they call elephant caretakers. We got to feed them, bathe them in the river, watch and observe their social behaviors, and generally get a better understanding of elephants' lives.

It might not come out in the photos, but it is hard to describe just how massive the elephants are. And surprisingly quiet. More than once someone would alert us to an approaching elephant, and we would turn to find a lumbering, 1000 lb+ animal upon us. Apparently, elephants only sleep about 4 hours a day. They are so large that if they slept too long, they would crush their own organs!


Elephants like wonderbread too! Here is Lek hand feeding an elephant. Don't worry, Tiffany and I didn't get anywhere close to sticking our hands in an elephant's mouth.






We did follow them into the river for their twice daily baths, though!






The scenery was stunning. The park was in a valley surrounded by dense green trees, and bordered on one end by the river, aka elephant bathtub.








The boy responsible for the brakes seemed a bit spooked by the white girl... Similar to Cambodia, these "tuk-tuk" taxis were the way to travel!




Our other day in Chiang Mai was spent learning to cook Thai food. We attended an outdoor cooking school, where the motto was "Kissin' do not last, cookin' do."






After each course was cooked we ate in their lovely garden, which included an herb garden and mango and tamarind trees.








Our final stop was Koh Samui, an island off of southern Thailand. It was the perfect way to end our trip. Three days of beach relaxation, reading, and of course, massage.







Our hotel was extremely romantic, and we walked into our room to find this touching, artistic display of two bath towels origami-ed into kissing swans, I think, and a double-wide rose petal heart with "Love" spelled out in the middle. I shed a tear or two at the sight.



And pure vacational bliss at last! We found a spa built into the hillside of the jungle and enjoyed an herbal steam bath, followed by two and a half hours of massage in a very cute little massage hut.





All in all, Thailand was another great getaway. We had beautiful sights, nice warm weather, delicious fresh food, and Tiffany got to play with animals in a safe, controlled environment. What more could we ask for?





Clearly Tiffany was a happy camper!

The Musical, Well-marked Island of Xiamen

A few weeks ago, Tiffany and I, along with our friend Meredith, flew down to the city of Xiamen for a weekend getaway.








Xiamen is located on the southeast coast of China and is one of its oldest ports. It was also one of the first cities forced open by the British following the Opium War, and as a result it still maintains a beautiful mix of European architecture.








We stayed on a small island off its coast, called Gulangyu, which is reachable only by a free ferry service. The hilly island is the main attraction, and with no cars or bikes allowed, we spent the weekend walking around, exploring the maze of small, winding roads covering the island. The residents of the island are also known for their musicality, and in fact, there was a piano instructor across the street from our bed and breakfast. So every morning we ate breakfast outside on the balcony overlooking the island, and listened to the graceful (and sometimes not so graceful) tones floating up for us to enjoy. Above are Tiffany and Meredith on the breakfast patio.
Per the usual China modus operandi, bright, colorful lights appeared to be attached to every fixed surface that could support them. We discovered this on our first night there, when a switch was flipped, and the island was seemingly transformed into a giant miniature golf course look-alike.




Four or five giant spotlights criss-crossed the night sky as well for added effect.







I also noticed some interesting signage during the weekend. Like chicken, 3.5 yuan (50 cents) for two chicken wings, or one chicken leg. Or 5 yuan (65 cents) for a leg/thigh combo. So naturally I tried paying 1.5 yuan for just the thigh, my favorite part of the chicken, but to no avail...





We were also forced to obey the wheel-barrow operating hours, and respectfully did not run around with our wheel-barrow after hours.








I was alerted by this sign to some sort of falling danger. As I walked over to examine it, I looked up and was promptly splattered by the well-known egrets, native to the island and unsympathetic toward non-Chinese speaking Chinese.






It was also my birthday weekend, and Tiffany surprised me by calling ahead to the B&B to arrange a cake.










Lots of lush greenery covered the island, and the air was so clean and filled with the sweet scent of spring time flowers that I ended up sneezing for a good part of the weekend, as my Shanghai, pollution hardened lungs were shocked by the sudden exposure to fresh environs.






Around every corner we found beautiful old homes under restoration.










Among the highlights of the weekend entertainment was this giant St. Bernard that Tiffany immediately bonded with.








And this happy musical duo, whom Tiffany did not bond with.





There was a nice little beachfront, where we were reminded of the Asian vanity for pale skin. Never do Chinese put on more clothes, and pull out more umbrellas, than when visiting the beach. Ack! Sun!

From far away, looking like the all-time whitest Asian, Tiffany was quite the envy of the crowd...

All in all it was a quiet, relaxing weekend, and perfect preparation for our big trip the following week to Thailand.

Family Month

For the second year in a row during the month of April, representatives of both the Chan and Tomaszewskis have visited us in Shanghai, so April is officially crowned Family month.

First up, the Chans. Zach's cousin, Josh, is spending the semester studying in Hangzhou, a little town (re: only 4M people) a few hours out of Shanghai. Josh's parents, Thalia and Tyler, and sister, Lindsay, all came out to visit him, and we had the honor of joining their whole family to celebrate Lindsay's 18th birthday in style at Shanghai's famous 'M on the Bund' restaurant. It was great to see them and hear all about their fabric market shopping extravaganzas and brave bike tour through the crowded streets of Shanghai.

Next up, the whole Tomaszewski clan! My parents returned almost a year to the day of the 'Tomaszewski-Chan Families Take on China for the Best Trip Ever' tour. But this time, they were joined by the brothers, Tom and Todd. They spent an action/chinese food packed few days in Beijing seeing the Wall, Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace, as well as a few other places that weren't on the trip last year. Unfortunately, the shopping was limited, so there were no trips to the silk factory or tie-dye demonstrations. We made up for that once they got to Shanghai. A few members of the Tomaszewski clan who will remain nameless left the fabric market with huge bags of clothes made from cashmere, wool, cotton, you name it.



Todd definitely won the award for best Chinese food eater. He even ordered Chinese dishes at the Western restaurants!

The whole family braved the metro system during morning rush hour......














We celebrated the April birthdays, Dad's 2nd consecutive birthday in Shanghai......












And mom finally learned that there was more than just shopping in the Yu Yuan garden area!


All in all, we had a great time taking our family out to our favorite restaurants, massage places, and of course DVD stores. And while this trip didn't have half as many shopping stops as last year, everyone still managed to go home with suitcases splitting at the seams!

Bay Area visitors!

My good friend Aaron Lee (aka “Matchmaker Extraordinaire” from our wedding) came through China a few weeks ago. His girlfriend, Christina, is spending part of her final year in medical school in a Beijing hospital, where apparently one can witness psoriasis in volumes unmatched in the US. Which, according to her, is exciting. That’s a med student for you…

Anyway, Tiffany and I met up with Aaron and Christina in Beijing for the weekend and planned a visit to a scenic, river valley gorge outside of Beijing. It was a beautiful, crisp spring day, ripe for adventure, and China did not disappoint.

It started out simply enough. Along with some of Christina’s fellow med students, we needed two cabs to get to the bus station, where we would catch a bus to the gorge. Immediately our two cabs separated (and of course, Tiffany and I were in different cabs), and we lost each other. When we arrived at the bus station about 20 minutes later, we couldn’t find the other cab party. Time to figure out where each other is via a quick cell phone call – easy, right? Fifteen minutes and about five phone calls later, we still couldn’t find each other. I was certain the cabs had dropped us off at different stations. Our ability to succinctly and accurately communicate pertinent information with the other party was sorely tested. A sample call sounded like this, “Where are you?! We’re at a bus station, too. There’s like a huge, gray building right next to us. Yeah, it looks really old. Yeah, and there’s like a whole line of people waiting for the bus right near it. Do you see it? Do you see us?! Oh, there’s a gray old building with lots of Chinese people milling around where you are too? Oh.” And so on. It turned out we were at the same station, just about a half mile apart. And it turns out Beijing actually has many buses, and quite a few old, gray, Chinese-looking buildings with lots of Chinese people wandering around all of them.

So with that mystery solved we were off to the famous gorge. Or so we thought. Two hours and two buses later, we arrived at the gorge, only to find that it was still closed for the winter. We were the only visitors there, except for the few pre-pubescent boys watching over the park entrance in their oversized military uniforms. But all was not lost. We were accosted by some locals who only saw dollar signs when they looked at our unsuspecting faces. After some debate and haggling, we ended up with two horses to ride and a local trail guide to show us the way up the mountain outside of the gorge park. It was a nice day and we’d come all this way, and the poor horses looked like they could use some food, so we figured why not. And it did turn out to be a nice little hike, with some pretty vistas and a great way to spend the day. Of course, on the way home we jumped on what we thought was the same bus, same route number and all, but it turned out to be the 3 ½ hour local bus, instead of the express bus we’d ridden that morning. We closed out our adventurous day with a classic Beijing dinner at Red Capital Club, which is completely covered in Cultural Revolution era décor, and specializes in all of Mao’s favorite dishes, including this hong shao rou, or red pork, which included a nice little Mao figurine carved out of taro, or a potato, I think.

Once Aaron and Christina got to Shanghai the following week, we took them on the standard Tiff and Zach Tour de Shanghai. This includes the fabric market, walks through the local streets, a tour of my office, eating at our favorite restaurants, and strolling the Bund at night. Oh, and of course, massages. Aaron and I opted for the TV room where we drank beer and enjoyed foot massages, while Tiffany and Christina went the classy route and had the traditional Chinese massage. Aaron and I provided the day’s entertainment for our masseuses, as they tried speaking to us in Chinese and then tried to figure out why the two Chinese-looking boys couldn’t answer their simple questions. Always good fun…

All in all, it was great to see them in China, great to show them our Shanghai hangouts, and great to show them how it really is possible to live in China and not speak Chinese. We got to spend hours and hours (and then a few more hours depending on which bus we'd chosen) catching up on each others' lives, retelling old stories (we are now officially old enough to do that), and, at least for Aaron and I, marvelling at the fact that we made it this far into adulthood. Trust me, there were plenty of nights we were together in New York where I would surely not have made that bet. But that's a blog entry for another time...

Looking For A Breath of Fresh Air

Not a week goes by where Zach and I don’t at least find one or two customs or habits here that we find truly baffling. One that we just can’t get over is the local obsession with fresh air. Regardless of how cold it gets here, locals are constantly opening the windows in cars, restaurants and office buildings to get fresh air. I’m fortunate enough to have a window in my office, and if I so much as get up to go to the restroom, 9 times out of 10, by the time I get back, the window will have been opened by one of my windowless colleagues to provide ‘fresh air’ to the entire office.

Shanghai has a lot of wonderful qualities, but unfortunately, the air quality is not one of them. My office building has state of the art air filtering machines, yet windows remain open. In addition to the need for fresh air inside, locals think clothes can only be clean if they are left to dry outide. When we first arrived here, we decided 'when in Rome' and hung our sheets out on our balcony to dry. Needless to say, once we brought in our dried sheets, they were anything but downy fresh and had a dirty film that had settled in from all the ‘fresh air’. After that, Zach and I took to hanging our wet laundry around our apartment from the hall tree, towel racks, and chairs until we moved into our new apartment and were lucky to get one of the few combo washer/dryers in the city which does the trick. Of course, our ‘ayi’ (housecleaner) has lectured us constantly on how we should not be using the dryer, we can’t quite tell if she thinks there are evil spirits in the machine that rob our clothes of fresh air, or if it just makes ironing our shirts that more difficult. Either way, every once in a while we do come home to an open balcony door and an apartment full of ‘fresh’ Shanghai air trying to counteract our unhygienic ways.