Christmas in Asia

Because we believe this is our last year on this assignment in China, we decided it would be great to bring all of our daughters to China together for Christmas.  Bringing them together didn't necessarily work well in the beginning.  Each of them wanted to fly to Chicago first and then on to Shanghai because they wanted to spend some time, either before or after China, at our home in Elmhurst.  So, because of their different schedules, they arrived one a day for 3 days in a row, December 19, 20, and 21.  So, we hired a car each day to drive the 45 minutes to the Pudong airport to pick them up.

Samantha arrived first, so the next morning, before Miranda arrived, we went to the International Eyeglass Market in Shanghai.  Samantha was like a kid in a candy shop.  She was so excited to be able to by several pairs of regular glasses and two pairs of prescription sunglasses for less than $150 USD.  I got some new glasses myself, including progressive transition lenses, which work for reading and distance, inside and out.  They were a fraction of what glasses like that would cost in the U.S., so I think I'll get some more made before we move back home.

Miranda arrived the second day and we went to the Fake Market with Samantha and Miranda to stock up on purses, wallets, make up, scarves, coats, shoes, boots, etc.  Everything is so inexpensive here, I know I'll have trouble paying full price when I get back home.  

Elizabeth arrived on the third day, so we went to the Fabric Market with her to have dresses, skirts, blazers and coats custom made.  We needed a week for everything to be finished, so we wanted to be sure to go before leaving for Cambodia.

On the fourth day, we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia for the week of Christmas.  

I never planned to go to Cambodia and when Elizabeth first suggested it, I said no.  As a child of the 60's, I remember watching television coverage of the Vietnam war every night after dinner and had no desire to visit Vietnam and Cambodia after seeing all of that.  Yes, the war has been over for a long time, but there just wasn't anything drawing me to this area of the world.  Then, my niece Lauren visited Siem Reap a couple of years ago. Last March, my sister Kate and brother-in-law David visited both Siem Reap, Cambodia and then onto Vietnam with Peter, Nickle and the kids.  They all reported that the ancient temples of Angkor Wat are incredible and they had a great time and we should go.  Also, because it's a less expensive area of the world to visit, especially as compared to Tokyo, which was the other front runner for our Christmas vacation, we figured we could take all 5 of us there for a week for a reasonable sum.

We spent Sunday through Saturday in Siem Reap and then returned to Shanghai at 4 a.m. on Sunday, 12/28.  Elizabeth only had a day and a half to stay after that, as she was flying back to Chicago on December 30th to be there for New Year's Eve.  Miranda stayed until January 2 and Samantha until January 9, going home in reverse order of how they arrived.  We had fun with Miranda and Samantha after Elizabeth left, but it got to be too quiet here too quickly after Samantha left. 

While the girls were in Shanghai, we shopped for DVDs at my favorite Movie Store, where each movie is 8 RMB, which is about $1.30.  We also went to eat JiaoZi, dumplings, at DinTaiFung, one of our favorite places for Chinese food.  Although it's more of a chain and not necessarily as local as other places, I am able to eat there and not worry about getting sesame or tree nuts or some other allergen.  We love the stir-fried green vegetables as well as the chicken and pork dumplings.

Neither Samantha nor Miranda had been to Hot Pot before, so we took the to Hai Di Lao, a great chain of Hot Pot restaurants  Hot Pot is something similar to fondue, where we have wells of a mushroom broth and a spicy shezuan broth, into which we drop meats, veggies, and noodles.

After Elizabeth and Miranda left, Samantha had quite a bit more time here.  We found a great German bakery, Brotzeit, and had some delicious pretzel bread that reminded us all of the great breads we used to have when we lived in Frankfurt. Samantha and I were lucky enough to be able to have a semi-private Indian cooking class with my friends Jenni and Sandy and their daughters.  We made some delicious Chicken Biryani and potato and chicken samosas.  The teacher, Payal, is a wonderful chef and I've learned a lot from her in the handful of Indian cooking classes I've taken.  I really enjoy the classes and hope to be able to fit a number of them in before I leave.

On the last day Samantha was here, we went to the Zotter Chocolate Theatre and Tour, which opened in the fall here in Shanghai.  Zotter is an Austrian chocolate company and Samantha visited the original factory in Austria while she was there last fall on her semester abroad.  She really enjoyed seeing the facility here and talking, in German, with Julia Zotter, the daughter of the couple who started the company in Austria.  Of course, it was also fun tasting all the different chocolates as well.

I really loved having them all here, even though they were a bit jet-lagged and some of us got sick over the holiday.  We had a great time in Siem Reap and I will post those pictures in another blog entry. I am looking forward to moving back to the U.S. so that I can go and visit them more often and they can all come home to our house in Elmhurst. But, in the meantime, it was a wonderful way to spend our last Christmas in Asia.