December 10, 2017

It's been an exciting week!

On Sunday, December 10, we went to church as usual.  1.5 hours later, we were meeting with the District President and I was called as the Elders' Quorum President, responsible for the teaching, spiritual, and temporal needs of the men in our Branch - and really all members in our Branch.  My first assignment came a couple of days later, when a sister needed help - she is moving (back to America).  Seems like things are the same everywhere in the world!

Then, Kristina came to visit us!  She had just spent 10 days in India attending a friend's wedding and now came to spend a couple of weeks with us.

After meeting her at the airport, we took her back to our apartment via
the Maglev - magnetic levitation train, one of only a handful in operation
in the world. It "floats" over the rails, making it a very smooth ride.

During rush hours, the train travels at up to 431/KPH.  As late as
we were riding, top speed was 301/KPH or 187/MPH

We found Christmas in Shanghai!  We visited a few "Christmas markets" and found an area of town that specializes in floral supplies and arrangements.  It was so fun to see so much Christmas, since that is MUCH less prevalent here, especially in our neighborhood, where there are not many foreigners.

The entrance to a housing area that has lots of expats.

Oh, and Texas BBQ?  We didn't try it, but seeing
something call "Bubba's" was a surprise

A whole store full of orchids!

Lots of wreaths

And Christmas tees...

And more trees!  You do NOT see these in stores.

We were getting hungry after so much walking and shopping, so we ducked into a restaurant that looked good.  It was a hot pot place - with everything in Chinese.  This is always a good sign (the food seems better and cheaper than when they cater to foreigners), but creates challenges.  Especially with a new experience.  John went to a table where a woman and young teenage daughter were ordering and asked for help.  The woman assigned her daughter to come help us; she spoke some English and pointed to things she liked.  We selected several of what we hoped were good choices of meat and vegetables to put in our pot (you place check marks on the menu for the things you want).  But then the waitress showed the daughter our order, discussed it with her, and the daughter came back and said "I think you ordered very too little." So we placed some more check marks on things.  They brought our food - a selection of two kinds of beef, several vegetables, etc.  You cook your own food in the boiling broth and then eat it with a concoction of sauces you can select from.  John created a killer sauce (in a good way) for his.  A Chinese man dining with his wife came over partway through his meal to make sure we put all our bamboo sprouts in the broth at once and chastised us when we tried to take them out too  soon.  Mostly he sat at his table and watched and laughed.  He didn't realize when he went out to dinner that it would include free entertainment.

Our hot pot dinner group - Ansteads and Roses

Our group with our teenage helper.  She was such a delight. She made
sure we knew our dinner included "free ice cream" and then came at the end
 to say  "I have to go now. Is there anything else you need?"

The next day we headed for the "meat market" at People's Square - a park in the middle of Shanghai.  We like to think they mean "meet market"--it's where grandparents go to do matchmaking of their unmarried grandchildren.  We didn't really know what to expect. - but it wasn't this  What we found were hundreds of umbrellas!  Each with an advertisement of the qualities of a young, unmarried Chinese person - mostly male, mostly about 30.

It's a busy place!

With open umbrellas lining both sides of the path

Each with one or more descriptions of an unmarried person,
along with birthday, height, weight, profession, and other
attributes, but rarely a picture.  Not sure if the phone number
is the person or the grandparent...

And a tree in the garden still blooming in December -
although it had lost most of its leaves.

We also went to the Shanghai Museum, which is free and has amazing art.

The museum and surrounding architecture - and gardens.

Outside the museum is a water show synchronized to music -
a real hit with the kids.

We see lots of toy vending machines - the ones where you pay to operate the crane with a hope that you can capture a prize - and usually don't.  But one day we saw a subway stop LINED with these!

Lots of vending machines with toys

Which seem to be rather popular!

And another vending machine, which we really didn't understand, but looks interesting:

We ended our week on Saturday at church, for "One Night in Bethlehem," where we got to tour a series of rooms decorated like Bethlehem in the time of Christ's birth, leading up to a live nativity.  Beautiful decorations, great costumes, and lovely music.  What a wonderful way to bring a focus on Christ into Christmas, particularly in a land where it is rare to find.  When we do happen upon any celebration of Christmas, it certainly isn't focused on Jesus Christ.  Coming to this event was truly a blessing to us to help us enjoy the spirit of the season!