Finally, the Legos are here!

Yesterday, our air shipment arrived.  Rebecca said that the sound of the boys raking through the Lego bin was very soothing to her.  Normally this sound will send chills down your spine, but when it means that the boys occupy themselves for most of the day without fighting, it's very welcome indeed.  Also in the shipment was the bedding, so today we're getting our luggage over to the house and checking out of the hotel.

Since they had been all day tied up with the movers, we decided to hit "Mr. Pizza" for dinner.  With surprisingly adequate pizza, it has become one of the restaurants of choice.  To our surprise, while we were there someone paid for our meal!  We looked around and didn't recognize anyone.  Come to find out, it was a couple from the church that noticed Rebecca and the kids and wanted to buy our dinner to welcome us.  What a pleasant surprise!  Also, in a bizarre twist, the husband works for the company that shares the duplex with my company.  Remember that Suzhou is about the size of Atlanta...

Today may be the last post for a few days while we get internet set up at the house and while I'm away from work for the Chinese New Year.  Hopefully we will have a lot to share on the celebrations.  I'll leave you with the following story of my first (known) international incident. 

This week I asked if there were any traditions at work for the last few days before a holiday, similar to how in the states we have potlucks.  To make a long story short (for once), no one knew what I meant and yet didn't want to offend me either.  So we forged ahead and today had a great time sharing the first potluck meal that the small group still here before CNY had ever had.  One person commented "this is great, I only have to bring one dish but I get to try so many!"  That's my favorite thing about it too...

Below is a photo of the event, I'm sure you'll agree it was a success!

Leason Learned

Never shop at Auchan (Chinese Walmart) on Saturday.  Never.  No really, never.  That was the warning that every expat that we discussed grocery shopping with gave us.  Like most of the "great" stories in my life, this one of course starts with "However, we...". 

However, we just got word that our air shipment will be here Monday!!!  I have to work this Sunday since the office traded working days to get more time off for Spring Festival.  This means that we had to go Saturday in order to have some of the basics.  Rebecca dragging three kids aged 8 and under to any sort of shopping district is just not at all feasible like it is in the states.  So off we go.

A brief description of Auchan before we begin:  There are over 100 check out lines.  It is roughly twice the physical size as a Walmart, with aisles about 20% narrower.  Very few things are in English, but thankfully the aisle headers were.  Jackie Chan has a lucrative sponsorship through laundry detergent.  About 10,000 people show up on a Saturday.  So I'm exaggerating, call it 7,500.  If you don't believe me, see the below picture of an aisle and multiply that by every single aisle in the store.

Thankfully we were taking a taxi, so what we could buy was limited to what two adults could lug around; we were in and out in under 2 hours.  Most of that time was Rebecca standing in line having people cut in while I wheeled the boys around outside.  She was getting annoyed and then she realized that they were cutting other Chinese as well; there was no offense meant to the foreigner, they just don't have the same system based on reciprocity with strangers that we have (i.e.  I don't cut you in line even though I don't know you because I don't want to be cut in on myself).  From what I read and hear, it's totally different with friends.  I can understand that thanks to my company's Influencing and Negotiating class, which actually did make the pill a little easier to swallow.  It's very strange to meet people who are incredibly good hosts (maybe the best in the world) and then go out in public and experience the opposite.

I also included some pictures below from earlier trips to show the types of foods available in the supermarket (yum!!!) as well as the highlight of the trip for the boys, an escalator that takes shopping carts.

Just a little off the top

The two oldest boys and I were looking a bit scruffy, so we went out the other day to get a hair cut.  Of course since I’ve been getting the same hairdo for 10 years (3 guard on the side faded to a close scissor cut on top, rounded in the back), I arrogantly figured I could explain my needs with a little gesticulation and a set of clipper guards.  Silly me.

When the boys and I arrived, they gave us a menu where I chose the full Monte (haircut, shampoo, shoulder massage) for all of us.  The shampoo guy arrives first and begins lathering me up while I still in the chair, squirting water out of a bottle as needed.  I then got up and followed him to the sink where he rinsed it out.  So now I realize that maybe this will be a little different after all.

The stylist arrives with clippers, thinning shears and a comb.  Uh-Oh, where are the guards???  Thankfully, he spoke English!  Below is the transcript of what would determine how I look for the next 2 weeks:

Stylist:  “Shorter?”

Me:  “Yes”

Stylist:  “OK”

Oh boy.  He grabs his comb and clippers and went to work on the right side of my head first.  I saw then what he meant by shorter, probably about a one guard.  He then turned me and asked if it was OK.  Given there was nothing left, I felt the only appropriate answer was “yes”.  He then finished the job he’d begun, giving me the first military style haircut I’ve ever received in my life.  Granted it was very, very well done and now that it’s been a few days it looks quite nice, but I never noticed before now how many moles I had on my scalp.

Reid and Riley both actually got great cuts and we all enjoyed the shoulder massage.  Feeling relaxed, I was ready to face the bill.  Normally in the states a standard cut for all three of us is about $30, without tip.  If we were to do the “Grand Slam” at a place that does shoulder massages for 2 minutes with a hand held massager, we’re talking closer to $60.  Our adventure cost us a total of 78 RMB (they don’t tip in China), which equates to roughly an $11.82 grand total.  We were so proud of our new found frugality that we decided to pay the exorbitant price of 48 RMB ($7.27) for 6 new movies.

No sleep for you!

 I’ve always been jealous of those mommas with kids that can fall asleep at the drop of the hat, and I finally have them!  Unfortunately I now also have those kids that wake up at an ungodly hour each morning – 3:30 to be exact!  Jet lag when you’re an adult travelling with an adult is really not that big of a deal.  Annoying, no doubt, but fairly manageable.  Just pop a little Tylenol PM each night and you’re good to go in a few days. 

With kids in tow, you pop the Tylenol PM and then still get woken up five hours later, only to be groggy in addition to tired.  It hasn’t helped that the boys all have coughs and are sharing a room.  This morning, Reid came in at 4:30am to announce to his completely passed-out parents “I slept a whole hour later than normal!”  While in hindsight it’s pretty exciting, at the time I think I grunted “Back to bed!” and pointed to the door.  After that, I lay awake, wondering how it’s possible for a man to sleep through his own snoring…it’s amazing really! 

Fortunately in the past three nights we’ve had a bit of a breakthrough (besides Reid’s sleeping in a whole hour), as both Riley and Rowan have each slept one whole night through.  You’ve got to celebrate the small stuff!  And really, the jet lag has not come without a few reasons to laugh.  Riley nearly fell asleep at the dinner table last night (the only thing keeping him awake was the prospect of ice cream), and two nights ago had us all in hysterics.  Shortly after putting them to bed, Dave heard Reid raising his voice at Riley.  Apparently Reid and Riley had been talking about something when Riley angered Reid by “not responding to him”.  Convinced Riley was antagonizing his brother, Dave demanded Riley respond.  Then, thinking Riley was being disrespectful to his father, he gave him a nudge to get his attention, only to have Riley roll over with a grunt, dead asleep.  Poor kid…can’t catch a break!  Hopefully my daily rendition of “To-night’s the night, to-niiight, ohhhh!” will actually come true and we’ll all get a full night’s sleep soon.

The Jet Lag Chronicles (through Sat.)

One of the most dreaded aspects of our adventure for me was the boys’ reaction to jet lag and our (in)ability to help them through it as we experience the same thing.  Below is the day to day record of how we’re feeling.  Hopefully we’ll get lots of visitors from the States over the years and I want to be sure everyone kind of knows what to expect…

Tues. / Wed. – Traveled from 7am Tues. to about 10:30am Wed. (all VA time; we actually got into the room and kids to bed about 11:30pm Suzhou time).  The kids slept about two hours each on the plane and about an hour in the car ride from Shanghai in that period of time.

Thurs. - Everyone was pretty much wiped out and slept until 7am Thurs. morning.  I (Dave) felt horrendous because I’m a caffeine addict and while on the plane I didn’t have any so I could try to sleep.  So on top of the jet lag, I had the caffeine headache until breakfast, after which everyone felt great.  Imagine the best buffet breakfast you’ve ever had in the US and multiply it by a factor of 10 to gauge what a breakfast in a Chinese hotel is like.  They have breakfast food from everywhere in the world all in one place.  It’s actually quite the experience.  Anyway, the great feeling lasted until lunch.  The kids and Rebecca took a 2 hour nap while I stopped by the office (Rebecca set the alarm which was the only way she woke up).  The kids didn’t budge when she opened the shades in their room; she had to coax them all to get up.  We went to dinner with one of my colleagues and the kids basically wallowed around the table while we let them eat desserts until they were full.

Fri. – I thought it was just what happened to me, but everyone woke up about 4am and couldn’t really get back to sleep.  We checked out the villa that morning and stopped to pick up some minimal groceries.  The kids and I took another 2 hour nap (alarm woke me up) while Rebecca went to have coffee with the Expat (expatriate) Association.  She came back with a lot of DVDs ($.75 apiece) and several hundred “taxi cards”, which are basically business cards in both English and Chinese that you show the taxi driver when you want to go somewhere.  Dinner was pretzel sticks and peanut butter since we didn’t feel like carting the kids around (and we were all still stuffed from breakfast and lunch).

Sat. – Got a call from the moving company at midnight wanting feedback on the loading process in IN.  Below is the transcript of the call:

Lady:  “Good Evening Mr. McLain, this is so-and-so with watchama-call-it; I would like to ask you a few questions about the loading of your household goods.  Were you the individual who oversaw the process?”

Me:  “You know I moved to China, right?”

Lady:  “Yes sir.”

Me:  “You realize its midnight in China?”

Lady:  “Sorry.”  <click>

In my defense, I was jet lagged and in REM sleep when the phone jolted me awake (the one time I’ve really rethought the rock version of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” as a ring tone).  Frankly, I was a little annoyed that the company that moved me across the world didn’t realize that I was actually ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD.  But I digress…

Sat. take two – The kids woke up at 4am again.  Today we’ll try not taking naps for the two oldest.  They all also have a slight cough, which I attribute to a combination of the wet and cold weather, the dryness from the heat in the hotel, and the smog.  So, thankfully we have due cause to medicate them tonight with some children’s cough medicine.  Below are some photos of them laid out at nap time as well as some random pictures of the hotel, which is decorated quite elaborately for CNY (Chinese New Year).  Red is a lucky color in China and the envelopes hanging from the tree in the picture are typically given to younger generations with money inside.  Now I know where the online gift company “Red Envelope” got its name…

We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship...

A week ago today we were “zooming through the skies” to our new home in China.  As we expected, Rowan was the most challenging of the crew.  I had visions of him curling up in my lap to sleep the night away, but that proved too lofty a goal.  Instead, he watched hours on end of the same plane-provided videos, said “no” as often as he could, refused to wear his seat belt, and cried when he was in the mood.  Meanwhile, Dave was sitting across the aisle between Reid & Riley who were contentedly playing games, watching videos, and enjoying the view of Canada and Russia.  I’m pretty sure I got the short end of the stick on that one!  All together the boys got a total of about two hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, while Dave and I snuck in a few cat naps.  We flew from Norfolk to Detroit, were laid over in Detroit several hours, and then flew 14 hours to Shanghai.  Suzhou is more than an hour away from Shanghai, so once we got our 500 bags loaded into two vehicles and got on the road, all but Reid fell asleep pretty quickly.  The worst part of the flight was probably taking Ro to the bathroom.  Airplane bathrooms are just gross (especially on hour 12), and it’s hard to convince a grumpy, overly tired two-year-old to keep his hands off things.  Thank goodness for soap and sanitizer!

 I’m pretty sure I had a mini panic attack mid-flight (no doubt induced by extreme fatigue).  It’s one thing to say “we’re moving to China” and another to have your entire family on a plane with almost all your worldly possessions en route.  I told Dave it reminded me of being nine-months pregnant driving to the hospital to be induced with each boy.  I remember telling him at the time: “I feel like I’m driving to my doom!  What was I thinking?  I purposely chose to be in this predicament and it’s not exactly as if I can back out at this point!”  Of course I assume, as with having children, that a few months from now when we’re all sleeping normally, I can understand enough Chinese to tell the driver where to go, the boys are in school, I know how to work my new cell phone, I know where to shop, I’m no longer living in a hotel, I know where all those taxis are hiding, I can convert renminbi to dollars easily (or just think in renminbi), and it’s not so cold and damp, I’ll forget how incredibly overwhelming everything is right now!  Until then, we’re just happy to be safe and sound in Suzhou…if not extremely tired.

Departure Eve

Well, we're finally here.  The night before the big flight we've got all 10 checked bags loaded in the cars and all 4 carry on bags ready to go.  With the 5 backpacks, that brings the total to 19 bags!  We found out that our air freight shipment won't make it through customs until after Chinese New Year, so that means we'll be stuck in a hotel until mid February!  Thankfully we're checking the kitchen sink, so we should be able to scrape by in relative luxury until then.

We'll see what comes over the next 24 hours, I'm sure we've forgotten a few things (like me picking up my contact lenses from the doctor in IN prior to flying out to VA).  Thankfully Suzhou is about the size of Atlanta so you can find a lot of what you need if you read and speak Mandarin.  Once we get there we'll give up our passports for the police registration and then basically lounge around snipping at each other until we get over jet lag.  We're at a nice hotel, so I'm sure there are worse ways to recover.

Moving Day(s)

The truck headed to storage today.  Tomorrow, the air freight and cargo shipment should leave the house.  We're allotted 1,000 lbs. by air and 15,000 lbs. by sea.  The house we're renting is fully furnished, which is the norm from what we saw.  We're nowhere near maxing out the cargo ship, and a lot will go into storage.  We selected a you-store-it in Virginia Beach where due to the military there were plenty of options to choose from.

It's been a fascinating experience trying to figure out what we really need or have to do without in 3 weeks (air), 2 months (cargo) and 3 years (storage).  I'm kind of freaked out by how many pillows Rebecca "needs" to survive until the cargo ship comes.  She says it's because they don't weigh much so they can go by air, but when you pack close to 20 full sized ones, you start to wonder how you got to where you're at...