A Day at the Park

Last Saturday we went for an outing to Century Park on the Pudong side of the river that runs through Shanghai (we live on the Puxi side [the u sounds like oo and the x sounds like sh in Chinese]). It was a windy day, so we bought a kite on the way over. The lady sold me the kite and I made the mistake of paying her before we decided what string she was including with the kite :) She tried to hand me a spool of thread, but my driver took it and threw it on the ground. It was very dramatic, and in the end we got a decent 200 yards or so of real kite string on a fishing reel. But I digress...

The park was huge and very cool. It was centered around a large lake and there were all kind of amusements there. We saw a little amusement park, where there was a sign on the bumper cars: "If you are a drunkard, have mental problems or are sick you can't ride the bumper cars." We could have used such a sign at our Gerstner Family Adventure in Florida when my brothers ignored the NO Bumping sign on the go karts ;)

Anyway, we started out by flying the kite - the wind was perfect for it, it took only one failed attempt before I got the kite skyborne, and just as I was letting that sucker pull out as much line as it wanted, Park Security came by and despite speaking no English, made it clear I was breaking some kind of rule.
[aside: I had heard about the kids with the holes in their pants for taking care of business, but hadn't seen it before. This shows very clearly the diaper coming out of the slot that I hear in the summertime is not so obstructed, but is very convenient. Just had to share...]



It took us a while to reel the kite back in and we sadly put away the kite for another windy day in another park and kept walking.

We next came to a booth where they were selling bubble blowers. As anyone who has kids knows, this was a major event. Adam and Jack especially loved running around and popping bubbles with hands, sticks, sandwiches, etc. Rachel was taking photos of Jack in the bubbles and actually caught this photo of Adam in the background... Is he really trying to EAT the bubbles? This candid has made me rethink how much good the old "soap in the mouth when you use potty language" is doing for Adam. He seems to have developed a taste for the stuff...

After getting the kids to move on from the bubbles, we found a prime soccer field. Sort of. At least it was relatively level and but for a few couples hitting the badminton birdie back and forth (yes, this is everywhere and likely the secret to Olympic success), was relatively empty. We settled the stroller, dropped some of our stuff by it, broke out the "soccer" ball and started to play.

It was great to get the kids out and playing soccer. We didn't even need to find anyone to play pickup with. We're a party just waiting to happen :) Before long, we had some other little friends - Chinese kids who are only children: these experiences remind one of what the one child policy has done deprive the children of China from having some built-in playmates at home.

We had a great time playing around with them and of course we drew quite a crowd of people around Grace and the stroller. The photo I included here is not a big crowd, but I love the guy holding up five fingers and the expression on his face. This is completely typical of just about every interaction we have with people when we're out in force. Wu ge. (means 5, as in five kids). Adam knows a few words/phrases in Chinese, and "wu ge xiao hai" (5 children) is definitely one. At one point in the afternoon, he just started chanting it out of the blue.

After a great time playing soccer, we decided it was time to figure out how to rent one of the six-person bikes we kept seeing around the park and go for a spin to see the whole park. It was kind of funny trying to load that thing up with kids and gear. Everything from the stroller went in the front compartment, Rachel held Grace. The six person bike consisted of two three-person benches, with every seat but the middle seat on each row equipped with pedals. We paid the rental, stashed the stroller, and went on our way to explore the park. It was so beautiful with the big lake in the middle of it and with the trees in blossom. We stopped at one point and I made Rachel get out of the bike with Grace and we got some good photos of them with the flowers.

We truly had a blast driving the bike around the lake and the other areas of the park. People would look then point. At one point we had a young couple pass us in a three-seater and the guy gave us that "so long suckers" look, so I got my best pedalers on each of the four stations and we pedaled hard and caught up with them. As soon as they felt the heat of the chase, it was on. They pedaled fast, we pedaled fast and were giving them a run despite the hunk of metal we were pulling along with us, but then we lost a shoe and we had to drop out. Speaking of dropping out, that will do it for this installment, but stay tuned... we have more adventures to share...