Online shopping

Following my earlier post on shopping at Partypro.com, my current obsession is with a Chinese ebay-like site, TaoBao.com (淘宝网) My obsession has to do with the following:

• Being able to shop in peace when all's asleep
• Have the entire market at my fingertips without moving my arse from the sofa/chair
• Trawl the entire Chinese market from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Zhejiang at the same time
• Compare prices from multiple vendors at the same time
• TaoBao sells everything one can think of; from Manolo Blahnik, fake Louis Vuittons to babies' formula milk
  

TaoBao is the perfect example of the economic model 'perfect competition'. Many buyers and sellers, (almost) perfect information (if you discount for information overload), transparent prices. I love it! :P It took awhile in setting up the paying process because I'd to get Internet banking, understand how the payment system works with my limited Chinese, overcome system glitches because the da*n thing works only with Windows and IE (& of course, most systems in our house run on Mac) blah, blah, blah. Finally though, after much mucking about, I made my first transaction 2 days ago. And since then, there's no stopping me. So far, I'd gotten 4 pieces of clothing for minibeanie, 2 sets of 3 baskets and another 2 baskets. That's a lot of baskets - I guess I'm a basket-case. See what I bought in the picture above. Heheh, I can't wait to see what the delivery man brings next week :)

Big Party planning

In exactly a week's time, minibeanie will be a year old! What a milestone! :) I still can't believe he will be leaving babyhood so soon. Already, he is displaying traits of toddlerhood by exercising his independence and will (usually at nap & mealtimes ;) Hmph, and a couple of months ago, I was wishing he would grow up - what, and leave the pliant & easy-going baby behind?

But we must move on ;) Preparations for the Big Party have been well underway. Not to shock folks who don't know me, I've made my excel sheets on guest list, menu => grocery shopping list, party supply order etc... :D About the latter, faced with the limited choice in Chengdu, I'd turned to Partypro.com. It was great! I'd to curb the shopping fanatic in me and not get party plates, hats, napkins, decorations for his 2nd, 3rd birthdays, our 5th, 10th anniversaries, Christmas.... you get the idea. It wasn't so much the cost of the items that prohibited this hitherto hidden streak in me (I pride myself on being a prudent spender), it was the darn shipping cost! To sum it up, the total damage was USD199, with USD59 being the shipping :P Happily, I'd gotten a friend/neighbour to share in the booty, a friend who lives to shop and has 2 little boys' birthdays to plan ;)

I just wish I've my dear friends from Singapore and Finland to share in the day.


minibeanie is 11 months, 3 weeks & 2 days old

Food prowl in Shanghai

Our last full day in Shanghai was spent fulfilling our duties as tourists, namely taking a few obligatory pictures at the Bund （外滩）, stuffing ourselves silly at the Whampoa Club buffet brunch and then eating still some more.

It was an overcast day and drizzling a little but it wasn't enough to deter a little determined march across the river to gawk at Shanghai's most recognizable landmark, the TV tower. But first, the brunch at Whampoa Club.

In all honesty, it was over-hyped. And I didn't think it was because I had my expectations too high. Since one MUST have XiaoLongBao in Shanghai, it would be a crime not to order it from Whampoa Club's offering. Unfortunately, while the skin of the dumpling was light and thin, its meat stuffing was bland and forgetable. That was a shame.

We felt that Whampoa Club's redeeming feature was its interesting twists on tried and tested dishes. For instance, Singapore's chicken rice was made into a spring roll (although the accompanying chicken rice chilli wasn't garlicky enough) The Chilled drunken chicken from Shanghai fared a lot better. Tender pieces of chicken (not unlike Singapore's Hainanese chicken) buried under ice shavings tinged with alcohol.

The best part of the brunch was its dessert menu. The Ginger milk custard with osmanthus from Macau was smooth if not a little on the dense side. The best item of the day however had to be Singapore's aloe vera green lime sorbet with lemongrass jelly. Heavenly!

With the brunch ending at 3pm, we felt that it would be impossible to do justice to Le Platane. So there goes the Risotto with wild mushrooms that we would have ordered :( Nonetheless, we went to XinTianDi with the objective of meeting a friend from Singapore whom I've never met before - it was a like a blind date! :D Eventually, we were led by DH's sweet tooth to a swanky (read: expensive) Chocolatier. Indulgent and excellent truffles and hot chocolate for dinner. What decadence.

At a tea house

minibeanie is 11 months, 2 weeks & 5 days old

Say ma-ma?

A conversation between minibeanie and me.

"Say ma-ma? ma-maaa..."
"a-pam."
"no, ma-ma. maa-maa."
"ta-pam."

It's intriguing how minibeanie says da-da perfectly while ma-ma is such a terribly hard word to pronounce ;)

Gastronomic Shanghai

It has been a great holiday so far!

From our hotel room, I see the neon lights of Nanjing East Road (南京东路）, Shanghai's answer to Paris' Champs Elysee, Singapore's Orchard Road. Nice! But as expected, having a little baby onboard means a very different sort of schedule - naps in the day, going out only after he has had his breakfast/lunch/dinner and to top it all, returning before he gets really grumpy for his bedtime. No matter, I think we've adjusted to the slower pace quite well :)

We wanted to sample Shanghai's street food yesterday and there's only 1 place for it - WuJiang Road （吴江路）. First, we had a flaky & crispy beef pastry （香酥牛肉饼) - minced beef nestled in layers of crispy pastry with a hint of sichuan pepper and generous amounts of spring onion. Then, we queued in a 20m long queue for the famous fried dumplings - XiaoYangShengJian （小扬生煎）. It was well worth the wait. It was like its famous cousin, XiaoLongBao （小笼包）, filled with soup. In fact, not knowing any better, I had to scald my arm with boiling soup when I bit into 1 hungrily. The base of the fried dumpling was crispy while the rest of the dumpling wasn't overly oily nor tough. In fact, the sesame seed speckled dough still retained a nice chewy elasticity. Hmmm...

XiaoYangShengJian

Next, we had a stick of barbequed little octopuses and a pair of succulent oysters grilled. Heavenly. Further down the street, we had stinky beancurd! It wasn't as stinky as I'd hoped :D Finally, we got a drink from 1 of the many juice bars lining the street. But what did we find? Durian milkshake! yesh! We were stuffed by then, but we couldn't resist the Portuguese egg-tarts :P

Octopus, oyster, mussel, pork, fish, chicken Grill

Today, we ventured to XinTianDi （新天地）. DH was missing good european food sorely so we had Italian at 'Va Bene'. DH's spaghetti with clams and white wine was on par with what we had in Rome but I was a little disappointed with my spaghetti with sea urchin and roe.

It will be another gastronomic adventure tomorrow. We've reservations with Whampoa Club on the Bund for its brunch and a dinner reservation with Le Platane, again at XinTianDi, a French restaurant helmed by a Singaporean chef.

We love Shanghai! ...and not a little bit jealous that we're in Chengdu instead of Shanghai ;)


minibeanie is 11 months, 2 weeks & 1 day old

A mini holiday

It's off to Shanghai tomorrow for another business-slash-getaway type of trip. In a way, it's almost like a holiday. 'Almost', because DH will be holed up in the office half the time. Anyhow, I can't wait to see Shanghai!

It's a shame we won't get to meet a dear friend and her baby, Oscar, though. We met in Finland and she'd spent the last 3 months back home in Shanghai. It would have been awesome seeing them again and have a local bring us around.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing Shanghai - modern skyscrapers cohabiting with Romanesque colonial buildings, Shanghainese cuisine that's delicate on the palate (a definite change from oily & spicy Sichuan food!) and the exciting cafe & restaurant scene! Speaking of which, I've already booked us a window table at the Whampoa Club （黄蒲会）. In a weird way, if going to Shanghai is the Haj for the foodies in us, then dining at the Whampoa Club is akin to the Stoning of the Devil ritual.

minibeanie is 11 months, 1 week & 4 days old

Walk the talk

minibeanie is walking!

When we noticed that he was becoming more gungho at cruising about 3 weeks ago, we made a trip to Ikea to buy him a push cart. It was a good buy :) He now prefers to walk around the room instead of going '4-wheel drive'.

He's ahead in the area of gross motor skills but doesn't seem too inclined in the linguistics department. He's quite adept at calling 'da-da'; on a few occasions, he has even called me da-da :D I guess any 1 parent is 'da-da' for minibeanie.

Different takes on privacy

Our concept of privacy is culturally tinged. What is sacrosanct or impolite may not be viewed by someone else in a different culture. I've lost count of the number of times a 'well meaning' person on the street has remarked that minibeanie ought to put on a pair of shoes or socks. Nevermind that it's sweltering summer in May and June. I used to reply politely that "it's ok, he's not cold" but there had also been moments when I retorted, "it's no business of yours". Not proud of those times but really, it's NOYBB! More often these days though, I play dumb and not dignify it with a reply.

Privacy, or the sphere of personal space, is a cultural thing. It's a well-known joke that when an Arab and a Finn is standing in a conversation, the pair will 'dance' around the room. The Arab with his much smaller notion of personal space will inch towards the Finn. Then the Finn, who is known for not even wanting to see his neighbour's cottage while in his own, will inch away from the Arab. Hence, the dance. Joke/anecdote aside, I've had many strangers besides proffering their advice, pinch or touch minibeanie. I appreciate the compliment but he's not a slab of pork in Carrefour to be tested for freshness.

The latest incident that spark this tirade is receiving a mail from Haagen Dazs' marketing department. I signed up as a member online but I did not recall anywhere where I check I want to be kept notified of Haagen Dazs promotions. No biggie because there's the "delete" button. But what really raised my heckles was the moron who put everyone's email address on the cc list. My email is private and even though, in all probability most people on that list do not give a hoot who I am, I still don't appreciate my email address being circulated out in the open. And no, there isn't even an 'unsubscribe' line in the mail. This will NOT be happening in Europe or the US so perhaps in a densely populated country of 1 billion, the concept of privacy is a foreign one.

minibeanie is 11 months & 1 week old

Finger food

I've been giving minibeanie finger foods. Besides its too obvious nutritional value, there are 2 other more sublime intentions. It is good practice for perfecting his fine pincer grip as he chases a soft piece of pumpkin around his bowl (bringing together one's index finger and thumb together neatly is a milestone for babies! :D). Leading from that, there's the hope that in the hopefully not so distant future, he would be able to feed himself. Yikes, which brings me to another 'babyism' -

Mantra for new mothers: Crumbs are your new best friends. Repeat again.

There's a third reason for finger food. Entertainment. It is something for minibeanie to do while in a restaurant. Alas, its entertainment value is short-lived as we often find out. Last week, minibeanie turned our Anniversary dinner in a nice restaurant into fast food. Two courses is as much as we can manage and even that is stretching it.

Speaking of the Anniversary dinner, _I_ forgot our Anniversary last week! I couldn't believe it! I'd been so busy with the humdrum of daily life and planning minibeanie's 1st year bash that it slipped my mind. Thank God there's backup in the form of DH, my better half :)

minibeanie is 11 months & 5 days old

grumbles

There are many challenges on living in China. Here are some of the recent incidents that had me tearing my hair in frustration, surrendering or just plain amused -

• a transfer from our Singapore bank account to our account in China of the same bank has taken more than a week to effect. The reason? The transfer form listed only 1 of the account holders as beneficiary. Hellooo? does anyone in China know what a JOINT account means?
• a friend booked both the BBQ areas in our condo for a big party one friday. On the day itself, it was discovered that 1 of the areas had been mistakenly double-booked. This came as no surprise because the management office's booking system was crap. Bookings were all manually written on a piece of paper based on when the booking was made rather than when the booking was for.
• to be kind to the landlord, instead of banging a couple of nails into the walls to hang our pictures, we used 3M's wall hangers which can be removed without removing the paint as well. Well, not so sure if we did any good because when we cleaned the wall with an alcohol swab to rid it from minute particles, we cleaned off a good layer of paint as well! :D so much for Chinese paint....
• paying for items in departmental stores entail taking a bar-coded tag to the cashier, paying for it, then taking the receipt with the tag back to the sales lady where your item is located Before she would hand over your purchase. It's such a Soviet style convoluted process.
• DH was playing ball with minibeanie one evening when he bounced the ball in our living room. No biggie except that the bounce managed to implode the sealant between the floor tiles. There's now a 3cm long gap between the tiles. Chinese quality.
• there's only ONE model of baby gate in the whole of China. I kid you not.
  

minibeanie is 10 months, 4 weeks & 1 day old

Bye bye!

minibeanie waved "bye bye" for the first time today! This comes after weeks of hugely exaggerated arm movements whenever one of us leaves the room :D

It's strange, this arm thing. For weeks now, he's been using his arm to beat to music - any music, from a catchy commercial tune and Sesame Street to mummy's 'ABC' song. This is usually accompanied with the bobbing of his head. (I tell you, he's a rapper in the making!) Recently, a new variation has emerged. He sways sideways to music.

minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old

First step

This is a moment to be remembered. A couple of moments ago, minibeanie took his first unaided step towards me!

minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 3 days old

Happy Birthday, dada!

On Saturday, it was DH's birthday :) The whole family was up at 0630 because minibeanie refused to return to bed after his 0500 feed (one of those). And so it was that a bleary-eyed DH came down with minibeanie to find a tray of birthday cupcakes with a lit candle approaching him.

Hummingbird cupcake with Limoncello cream cheese frosting

It was a strange name for a cake but I think the cake had southern roots and it was characterized by pecans, banana, pineapple with a hint of cinnamon. The end result was a wonderfully moist and delicious cake. And at 7 in the morning, it wasn't quite a healthy breakfast but at least we were having our fruits, nut and dairy! :D

I decided to give the traditional cream cheese frosting a touch of Limoncello, a lemon liquer from Southern Italy, since there's a bottle of it in my fridge. Besides, it would set off the citrus-y flavour in the cake. Unfortunately, the frosting had too little of the taste of Limoncello. I found myself in a situation where I'd to add a lot more icing sugar than I wanted just to keep the consistency suitable for piping. The icing sugar then masked the taste of Limoncello and also made the frosting a tad sweet. It was a catch-22 situation! After awhile, I decided to go with more cheese than sugar so I removed half the frosting from my bowl and beat in the remaining cream cheese I had. I now have a container of cream cheese frosting in my fridge waiting for me. Perhaps a carrot cake?


All in though, it was a wonderful recipe :) Thanks to chockylit!


minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 2 days old

zombied

At 10 months, you thought that night wakings are for newborns or finicky babies. But for the past few nights, minibeanie had been waking up at 4am and seemed to take forever to return to sleep. He would have a huge appetite for milk, as much as 50% of his daily intake, and be wide awake standing by the crib railings and calling out to his comatose parents. And when he didn't get any attention, his babblings quickly became a shrieking crescendo. Finally, one of us would break. Last night, it was DH who stumbled out of bed at least 4 times to feed him twice and to pick him up. I was feeling the beginning of a cold with a sore throat and felt bone tired.

On Saturday night, we let him 'cry it out' which was a sleep training method. We decided that it was too cruel and heart-wrenching so we changed track and last night, we tried the PU/PD* method which would work in principle if the baby wasn't hungry! And judging by the amount of milk minibeanie drank, I'd say he was ravenous. Which begged the next question, how/why did his feeding schedule become so warped that he started consuming most of his milk at 5am? It could be that we were subconsciously giving him less milk during the day because we were now on powder formula. Previously, we had the convenience of 'pret-a-boire' formula milk - just open the packet and pour. I'd try stuffing him silly with milk today and see how it goes. Then again, one couldn't keep a baby that hungry during the day - could it be a growth spurt?

Night wakings appear to be a common 'affliction' among 10-month-olds. I read of similar experiences and 1 explanation of it could be separation anxiety brought on by their increasing independence.

*Pick up/Pick down

minibeanie is 10 months & 3 weeks old