Our City

For years (close to 10) I have been calling Boston "Our City". I love the skyline, the energy, the attitude, the food, the shopping, and the friends we made there. Now we have a new city to call ours...Shanghai.

Doug and I spent 8 days there, getting to know the city, the neighborhoods, the schools, the grocery stores, the CRAZY driving, and the many, many, many "villas" that we looked at. In the end, we decided on a penthouse apartment on the 21st floor in a part of the city called Hongqiao (pronounced hung chow). It is walking distance from lots of stores, markets, resturants, the subway, and a 25 minute drive from Doug's office downtown.

We also found a great school in the same neighborhood, Yew Chung International School http://www.ycis-sh.com/home/home.stm. Pia has a confirmed spot starting January for 3 days a week and hopefully they find one for Eric as well. The school is fantastic. They will receive a bilingual education (English and Chinese) and will even start violin lessons at age 4 (this was Eric's request...that we find a school with guitars and violins. Success!) The school and friends that have kids there as well say that the kids will be bilingual within the first 6-8 months (parents, not so much. Try 6-8 years!)

Overall, a successful first trip! Now the fun really begins... ;O)

East meets West

Views from the Bund

A typical Chinese commodities market
(aka everything that "fell off the truck")

The Shanghai World Financial Center at Night
(The 3rd tallest building in the world)

After this, it was confirmed that Doug was a go!

And after this, Eric was confirmed a go!