Last April 3 and 4 was a long holiday weekend celebrating the Chinese tradition called Tomb Sweeping Day. We were fortunate to have found an excuse to get out of the city (something I do not typically do especially during holidays in China) at the last minute. We registered and booked our train tickets to Hangzhou with the help to my colleague, Yolanda, whom I’ve also invited along with her daughter to go along on this unique educational trip. This whole trip was organised by a couple teachers from in and around Hangzhou as well as one from Xi’an. I am so very in awe at how we were welcomed warmly and the teachers…
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… our days seem to go in a blur! … keeping a journal handy with my fauxdori (courtesy from the fantastic Happie Scrappie) and custom-made insert to document our Week in the Life … school homework takes a big part of our evenings … work has been hectic with deadlines all sort of happening at the same time … organizing a trick-or-treat for our entire apartment complex (4 buildings) at the last-minute; so far there is 60 kids registered and 25 apartments … some routines are changing almost everyday and some of those changes are a challenge and some are not too bad … on some nights, we only have time…
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It has been a while since the last blog post. Life has been full! Kids are in their last term of kindergarten before grade school. Finding the ‘right’ local school is on our to-do list. International schools in Shanghai are not affordable.
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Summer in Shanghai for us means lots of pool time….
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Still cannot believe that my kids have turned 5!!! It’s a big number. And it so happened that this year, their birthday fell on the same day as the Mid-Autumn Festival which is an important Chinese holiday. It signals Autumn and also a time for getting together, enjoying mooncakes and families gather around to enjoy the full moon.
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Today was the last day of school for the kids. They are going on to ‘zhong ban’ (means ‘middle’ kindergarten) next year. The year has gone rather quickly. And to top that, one of the kids’ classmate, Owen, will be moving to Hong Kong so there was a bit of flurry of activities esp. for me, trying to finish up my first ‘proper’ quilt.
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We took kids to the beach in the morning. Then, we told the kids we were taking them somewhere after a late lunch at the hotel. So, we arrived at the venue and was hoping the kids would pick up on hints everywhere with kids everywhere mostly wearing The Wiggles clothes on. But somehow they seemed overwhelmed with so many things going on.
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We are excitedly counting the days till we get to go to Hong Kong and watch The Wiggles in concert in Hong Kong. Ssshhhh! Our kids don’t know yet as this is a complete surprise for them! There will be 2 surprises: the trip to Hong Kong itself. They’ve been ‘ready’ since January, expectantly waiting for the day when we can afford to go to Hong Kong once again. Being ‘ready’ means they’ve packed their Trunkis with summer clothes and toys already. We plan to only tell them 2 days before we go (which is a weekend) so they can prepare their Trunki cases. the concert is also a surprise…
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It has indeed been some time since I managed to blog just about anything. For some reason when December started, we got swamped with work which is great of course, as it made up for the very slow beginning of 2009. So I’ve been trying to find little pockets of time in between work and weekend with the kids to do something. Our Christmas presents for the family unfortunately still has to go out! It’s awful and I’m fortunate my family has been quite forgiving about the lateness. I guess they get to have Christmas all over again… the gifts will finally and definitely will be out this week and I’m…
















