View from the JW Marriott, 59th Floor

S H A N G H A I

With the expiration date of my Chinese visa looming, we decided to visit Shanghai at probably the worst time of year. But at least there weren’t too many tourists getting in our way! Shanghai was crippled by a one inch ‘snowstorm’, there were transportation delays, and lots of coverage on the news. Luckily, it didn’t impact us at all and being from the Midwest, we weren’t strangers to winter weather.

Many of the fake markets have been closed down, especially the ‘big one’ that Gerhard always raved about when he returned from a business trip. We did find several others, not as big, but still as fake! I was able to buy pearls, got a couple of ‘Prada’ bags, a stamp with ‘Kremer’ in Chinese, some knock-off tops; Gerhard scored big, too. He loves haggling with the young Chinese salesgirls. They look close to tears when they give in; but once the money changes hands, they are all smiles and try to sell him something else. He loves it!

We took the high speed train (Mag Lev) from the airport to the city. It got up to 430 km per hour but you couldn’t really tell the ride was so smooth. It only takes 8 minutes compared to 50 minutes by taxi.

Can you see the '429km'?

Taxis were cheap and plentiful. They all have meters, so you are assured of not getting ripped off. Each time we took off, a recording came on to ‘please fasten our safety belts’. Well, out of 20 taxis, 20 didn’t have seat belts. There were some funny rules posted inside the cab, too: Passengers are not allowed to carry with them contraband goods, to smoke, spit or to dump inside taxis. (uh, dump?) But overall, they were very good drivers and courteous to other motorists. In Singapore, the cab drivers are worse.

How We Spent our Christmas Vacation

Zakary, Jereme, David & Niklas
Last year, I was in the States from Thanksgiving until the middle of January. I ended up missing many of the Christmas celebrations and decided to stay in Singapore most of December. I’m really happy I did as it is our last year in Singapore.

We arrived at my parents’ house late on the Saturday before Christmas. Mom had planned her annual Christmas sing-a-long for Sunday, so we could be there. The weather was great all week so that we, especially Gerhard, played quite a bit of golf. The following weekend, our Julia arrived with her boyfriend, Carey. My siblings also arrived on Saturday and we moved into our beach bungalows on Siesta Key. We never grow tired of the pristine white beach; it’s like walking on cool, powdered sugar - seriously. David and his girlfriend, Krista, arrived on New Year’s Eve and unfortunately, the weather turned unseasonably cold. It was in the 30s overnight – brrrr. But the kids didn’t mind too much. It was wonderful to have the whole family around all week.

Doesn't my mom look great?

My mom turned 80 in January and had her big birthday bash on January 4 so we could all attend. It was a wonderful party.

Barb & her wonderful family

Krista, Julia & Carey