MARCH 11, 2009

I'll start with a weather and climate update. What is it about talking about the weather that seems to get my creative juices flowing? Oh, well .... anyway spring is desperately attempting to replace winter with limited success. I have actually seen patches of BLUE SKY for the last 3 or 4 days in a row. And over the weekend, the temps crept up toward 60 degrees. Unfortunately, winter continues to raise it's ugly little head in it's last gasps that leave us shivering in the icy north breezes that grace our neighborhood now and again. But we're getting there. There are small leaves on the willow trees, and the azaleas and jasmine are blooming (the jasmine smells great!!). Soon the garden workers will rip out the pansies (the winter flower garden staple here) for more springtime blossoms.

So what have we been up to lately? Last week was fairly unremarkable other than me feeling the effects of a virus of some kind. I do believe that jet lag suppresses the immune system and leaves one vulnerable to a virtual plethora of ailments (depending upon one's innate weaknesses, I suppose). My Achille's heel has always been respiratory (although the older I get, the more it becomes digestive .... sigh, but I digress). So by the time I'd finished writing my last blog posting, I was feeling truly exhausted, head achy, and had a really odd sore throat .... almost as though I'd swallowed something that would not quite get past my Adam's apple. Hurt like heck especially when I swallowed food. I suffered those symptoms for a day or two and finished up the experience with some minor sinus drainage and a chest cough that lasted another day or so.

I wouldn't normally bore you with the details of my ailments except that it was my excuse for not leaving the apartment for several days. Randy had plans for Men's Fellowship again in Pudong on Friday evening. I'd been thinking that it would be nice to go as far as Lujiazui and Superbrand Mall with him, have dinner somewhere at the mall, and then I could shop a bit while he went on to the end of the subway line and taxi the remainder of the trip to our friends' place (Dave and Holly) for their "fellowship." But by the time Randy text'd me that he was on his way home from work to meet me, I replied that I wasn't going anywhere except to the sofa to watch a DVD from under a quilt.

I ordered some salad and pasta from a French restaurant via Sherpa's (a delivery service we utilize fairly regularly) which arrived in record time so Randy had dinner waiting for him. By the way, the bad economy has surely reached Shanghai. Prices have not come down any (except for rent) but portion sizes sure have! A large salad that Randy and I usually split for supper (one of our faves .... smoked chicken salad with bleu cheese and walnuts!) is now the size of a small dinner salad. And normally we receive a French baguette with each order placed (the closest thing I've ever tasted to REAL French bread outside of France). These days, if you want the bread, you're charged for it. Drat!

I awoke Saturday still feeling somewhat altered but improved. We decided to take it easy during the day as we had plans that evening with 3 other couples and Randy's coworker Alan for dinner at an Austrian restaurant which was new to us. As the weather was a touch warmer (albeit still somewhat gray), we decided to go an hour or so early via subway and walk the neighborhood in which the restaurant was located to just investigate the area.

Servus Vienna (the Austrian restaurant) is part of a group of businesses located in a new area called the New Factories. The New Factories is exactly that .... a neighborhood of old factory buildings that has been gutted and renovated to include restaurants, clubs, art/photo galleries, boutiques, and quite a few empty spaces yet to be filled. The streets are cobblestone and the store fronts beautiful and quaint. I believe that the upstairs areas are apartments but I'm not sure I'd want to live in them as the night life is probably quite boisterous. But I'm sure the younger folks would love it!! Randy and I enjoyed exploring this, the newest of hot spots in town prior to settling in at the bar in the restaurant for a pre-dinner drink.

The restaurant is a multi-level structure with the bar/tavern and stage for live music located downstairs and the dining room being upstairs (seems a lot of restaurants go with this two story situation in Shanghai probably due to lack of space), and the interior design was very nice. Having never been to Austria, I can't vouch for authenticity. But the food was excellent and decidedly German in nature which was OK with us. For most of the group (the majority of the group were Michigan natives), German food is comfort food reminding us of home.

The group took their drinks upstairs and was presented with an appetizer of bread with "tiger" meat and mustard dipping sauce. Any folks from Frankenmuth (or other predominately German areas in the states) are familiar with tiger meat which is basically raw burger heavily spiced and mixed with chopped onion to spread on bread or crackers. I have eaten this (and enjoyed it) on numerous occasions in Frankenmuth but decided to leave it on the table in Shanghai. Also, the menu at Servus Vienna was vast and very tempting so I wanted to leave my stomach available to other options. Randy suggested that I put a link to the menu here in the blog for perusal: http://www.servusvienna.com/en/. Have a look-see just for grins.

Most of us ordered some kind of soup or appetizer. I chose the pumpkin soup with pumpkin seeds .... YUM!! Excellent!! Randy got a beef appetizer that looked pretty good. It must have been OK because he didn't offer me any! I ordered Wiener Schnitzel for my main entree and Randy ordered lamb chops .... all exceptional!! Of course, no dinner would be complete without dessert. I decided upon the strawberry filled crepes (quite lovely), several other diners got the apple strudel which must have been divine because they were all moaning and groaning over it. But our friend Dave got the dessert that I WISH I'd ordered .... a selection of white and dark chocolate mousses. Looked outstanding!!! It was a truly successful culinary experience! There were so many items on the menu that we wanted to try ... obviously another visit in the future is in order.

That is one of the frustrating things about Shanghai .... there are SO many wonderful restaurants to try!! We'll never get around to all of them if we live here for 10 years (I guess I'd better be careful about putting THAT suggestion out there to the Universe!!). And when we visit a restaurant that we particularly enjoy, we're inclined to want to visit it again soon instead of trying something new. Choices, choices!!

Sunday dawned sunny and glorious! Randy had been wanting to take me to a wine store in the French Concession that he'd discovered in my absence so we devised a plan to ride the subway as far as Jing An Temple (which is located just outside the French Concession) and walk the neighborhood. This is a lovely area in which to spend time strolling on a sunny day .... lots of trees and cobblestone walks, many interesting shops, boutiques, and cafes to peruse. We popped into a store/museum that displayed many items from Tibet and the Himalayas, probably made by Buddhist monks. We noticed a large display of music CD's on a table and the proprietor indicated that the music to which we were currently listening was included in the wares on the table. There was a notice explaining that the CD's were free for the taking but a donation was requested. So we picked up one with the title of "Music of the Himalayas" and put our 20 rmb bill into the vessel provided for the purpose (Randy said, "Make a wish!"). I hope all this gets past the censors .... Tibet is a bad word in China, normally. I guess we'll find out.

We continued our walk until we found the wine store. Randy has a card given to him by the owners at his previous visit. But we were disappointed to discover that there is now a different owner (very typical of Shanghai .... store and restaurants change owners or open and close like the wind). Randy remembered some of the wines he'd tried at his last visit so we purchased a couple of bottles.

Upon leaving the wine store, we discussed our options for lunch. We were very near several good restaurants, I expressed my desire for Thai food at Simply Thai. As it was International Women's Day, any food ordered by a woman was 50% off, plus all women received a free trip to the dessert bar provided specifically for the purpose. We ordered a salad and a couple of chicken dishes with steamed rice ... all yummy!! Thai food probably isn't the best for my cholesterol diet due to it's heavy use of coconut, coconut milk, and peanuts .... but it sure is good!! The dessert bar sported fruit, red bean pudding, and several mousse type confections made with fruit and corn. I took a bit of most selections and was pleasantly surprised by the new things I tasted. Especially, the corn thing. It was sort of a mousse/meringue fluff (looked a bit like a petit four) that had sweet corn in it ... really very pleasant!!

We left Simply Thai feeling quite satisfied only to be confronted by Paul's across the street .... a fantastic French bakery where you might recall my story of the rhubarb pie melt-down from last spring. We just looked at each other, paused for a moment, and then marched across the street. They indeed had the rhubarb cream pie again so I selected that, and Randy got a chocolate tart-like thing that sort of reminded us of a big brownie which we took home to enjoy for a later evening sweet treat. Oh, heaven!!

We were not too terribly far from the Portman Ritz-Carlton which has a City Shop grocery in the basement. Randy and I had discussed fish chowder for dinner that evening so we went there to pick up supplies for the recipe before hailing a taxi for the ride home. It was so nice to have spent most of an entire day outdoors enjoying the pleasant weather, scenery, sights, and food of the French Concession. Little by little, I seem to be getting my "Chinese" legs a bit more steady under me.

A funny story to report though .... yesterday morning, I decided to start a load of the never-ending laundry before I walked out with Randy in the morning, he to catch his ride to work, and me to the gym for the morning date with the treadmill (I needed to do something to counteract all those desserts I'd consumed over the weekend!!). I placed my load in the washer and tried to start the machine. Rats ... I kept getting an error message and the machine would not start. I'd had trouble with this previously but had always managed to restart or hit another button to get it going again. Nothing I did seemed to make the damn thing run! I guess it just hit me at the wrong time or something. I walked back into the kitchen (the washer and dryer are on the patio just off the kitchen) where Randy was finishing his coffee. I slammed the door and shouted, "Sometimes I just HATE this damn country!!!" And proceeded to rail about every negative thing about which I could conceive in our current residential country .... pollution, poor quality products, crowded conditions, rude people, dust and construction everywhere, yadda, yadda, yadda!! Randy was a bit irritated with me by now due to my negative attitude of late. He walked out onto the patio, rearranged the load in the laundry, and it took off (of course)!

As we walked out into the hall and got into the elevator, I continued my tirade of objections regarding life in the Orient. Randy offered the suggestion that I let the Ayi do the laundry to which I replied that she is only here one morning per week, and what with the small laundry loads, I need laundry to be done almost daily to keep up with it. About that time, a tall German fellow boarded the elevator and sized up the situation, probably sensing that things may have been somewhat tense between the couple he'd just encountered. At that moment, Randy countered with, "Why don't you just get the Ayi to come in DAILY?" There was this stunned silence while I contemplated his suggestion (feeling quite certain it was probably just rhetoric on Randy's part), when the German piped up, "I sink ziss is a GREAT idea!!" We all just busted out laughing, and I pointed out that now that I had a witness to my husband's suggestion, I'd be getting on the phone to the Ayi post haste!! We arrived on ground level where the German wished us a good day knowing he'd probably just salvaged an expat marriage .... well, at least today (Big wink)!!!

Until next week ..... so long for now.