Our Neighborhood

I'm not sure I've ever posted photos of my neighborhood here in Shanghai. When Lisa was visiting last month she took some photos of the more interesting aspects of our neighborhood so I'll post them below to give you an idea of where we live!

Here you can see the entrance to our apartment complex...the blue gumby looking guy out front is the mascot for this year's World Expo being held here in Shanghai. He was a bit of a controversial figure at first, but most kids like him and pretty much every apartment complex, park, and shopping mall has a statue of him out front these days.

A 5 minute walk from the front gate of our apartment complex is a small alleyway that holds the main market for fresh foods and produce for our area. Although much of my shopping is done at a nearby grocery store, this alley is where I often buy vegetables, fruits, and really good baozi (steamed buns with meat or veggie filling...my girls LOVE these!). We walk down here about once or twice a week. The girls like looking at all the animals and since it is so close it can be a lot easier than packing up the kids and riding some form of public transportation to the grocery store!

A grains vendor... to be quite honest I still couldn't tell you what some of the items he sells are. Mainly because some of the items are dried 'fungus' and things that we generally don't eat in the west! He does have five different kinds of rice, and I was pleased to recently find that he sells brown rice! Surprisingly brown rice is hard to find in China! Here it is sometimes called 'Zao Mi' or 'early rice' because it hasn't been processed as much as white rice.

Yum! Don't the veggies look great! Some days are better than others, but usually the vegetables look bright and much better than at the grocery.

When my sister was visiting, she informed me (as a kindergarten teacher) that part of the science curriculum for Kindergarten was helping kids understand that different kinds of meat comes from animals, birds, etc. My girls won't need to study that. Here at this market you choose your poultry and seafood alive and then they kill, defeather, etc. while you watch. Although very fresh, I do not buy my meat here. I pay a little more and get my meat pre-packaged at a grocery store...I just can't bring myself to buy meat when I've seen the animal alive.