Settling In

Despite Vernon's having several work crises going on, we managed to get out and see Shanghai some, especially on the weekends. One place Alison and Cielo saw last year, but Vernon didn't, was Yu Yuan (Yu Garden). It is a well-known Chinese garden, which basically means it has ponds, small buildings in different styles, and lots of different views and landscaping effects.
Cielo didn't care about the garden much, but was very interested in the white cat living there. Tearing her away from the kitty was not easy (we think she misses Mango more than a little).

Cielo has really been working on her drawing skills. Here is a picture she drew competely on her own of Ernie, and another one of Ernie and Bert (you can see by their raised arms that they are waving).

The first day we moved to the apartment, we went to a big department store on Huaihui Lu and bought a portacrib. It's very similar to the ones in the U.S., other than the labeling and instructions. Cielo couldn't wait to get in and try it out!

We spend a lot of our time studying Chinese. At first it was just a kind of "wouldn't it be nice to learn some Mandarin while we're here" thing, but then we went to a few restaurants that had no English menus, and started taking it seriously.

We also managed to go across the river to Pudong (we live in Puxi, the west side; Pudong is the east side). Here we are on the ferry heading across.

We still spend a lot of time at the playground. Here's Cielo at the famous open-it/close-it door.

We brought several toys along for Cielo to play with while we're here. But we have bought several new ones, including this wooden bears puzzle, which we bought at the shopping center under Renmin Square.
You can change their facial expressions (heads), shirts, and pants. The top of the lid is also where the bear templates are, and, perhaps appropriately, they come shrink-wrapped with their "expression of horror" heads on.