Shout out to the Witbecks

Well Zeta officially made her last transfer of our crazy lives back to the Witbecks- our amazing friends who have graciously kept her through Europe and now China. See how sweet looking they are? Now as if this isn't wonderful enough- Julia, a sewer extraordinare, is making Halloween costumes for these doggy best friends. Don't worry, as soon as I have pics of this- you will see them! Thank you to the Witbecks and in honor of missing Zeta way too much- I found a little friend at the fabric market....

Tour of the Fabric Market

Hola folks! I know, a plethera of posts lately- be sure to scroll down as to not miss anything! :) I would like to take you all on a little tour of the fabric market...

This is a place where you can go and have anything in the world made and it truly turns out awesome- you just bring them a picture and your measurements and voila! A full suit is about $75, coats around $40 and dress shirts around $10- nuts!

There are a few things to note, though- if and when you ever venture to this market, please bring with you the following, to make your experience more pleasurable:

- money
- water
- snacks
- a portable fan
- a sherpa to carry your goods
- a translator
- antibacterial hand soap
- toilet paper
- a sheet to use as your own personal changing room- oh and a friend to hold it- otherwise down to your scivvies like the guys in one of these videos posted.

Enjoy!!

Night Swimming

Basically what I look like in a speedo. *I do not wear a speedo to swim!

lugie - 1 definition - a spid wad made by sucking the mucous into the back of your throat and combining it with saliva.


So, I had another hilarious cultural experience last night that is blogworthy. Ash and I went over to the Portman (where the Taylors live) so I could swim some laps and she could do the elliptical. In classic China fashion, what started as an innocent night quickly turned into a debacle!!

Where do we start...well, I went into the locker room to change, and saw a couple men (locals) preparing to swim. By this, I mean they had goggles on their heads and were walking around naked. This is very popular in locker rooms here. I decided to beat them to the pool, since I had noticed on the way in that it was already pretty full.

I got the the pool first, and jumped in immediately. The pool has 1 lane, and then an area that is not laned off (kids usually play here) that is about 3 lanes wide. I was the third in this area, and the lane was taken. I thought, "Suckers", and started swimming my laps...

Well, the two men I saw in the locker room showed up about a minute later, and immediately jumped into my area of the pool. Now there were 5 of us in an area meant for 3, and Asian people are not great with walking or swimming in straight lines, so this was a problem.

We began swimming "Arc" laps, where during each length I would have to swim around at least 1-2 people...which was horrible. Additionally, people here love to swim breaststroke, which is an awful stroke. It takes up the most room and is the slowest stroke in the world. I had an old lady swimming next to me who was basically floating, and riding other people's currents to the other side of the pool and back.

So, with 5 of us in the common area and 4 doing breaststroke, I thought things could get no worse. I was wrong. First, the lady next to me started walking laps in the pool, which made her even slower. She was doing some kind of arm thing that made her 8 feet wide as well. I could not make this stuff up.

At this point, I took a break to gather myself, and consider leaving the pool. One of the locker room boys stopped as well (about 2 feet from me) and hocked a huge lugie (a national pasttime), and then spit it onto the edge of the pool!!!! To be clear, this is one of those edges where the water spills over the side for a couple feet, so he basically spit into the water right next to me...holy moly.

I am a man who does not like sharing ice cream, let alone having people spit in my bath water. This was quickly becoming a horrible situation...I swam a couple more laps and decided to call it quits before I was completely covered in mucous.

On the positive side, I did feel faster in the water when covered with another man's snot.

This is all I can say about this, for I am starting to feel nauseous just thinking about it.

Preggo- Don't feed me Eggos

Hi troops!

Well you asked for belly photos- how about a 3D video? I am still learning to edit video so bear with our random bad intros and endings but at least you can see me all big! This was almost 2 weeks ago- but not much change, thank goodness! 14 pounds up, 6 months in and growing by the day! AHHHHH!!!!

Our Abode

Hello all! Let the video tours begin- I do promise this will be a very exciting ride! First comes first- a tour, hosted by me, of course, of our glorious apartment. Not very cozy or homey but it serves the purpose of living and is very clean! Enjoy.

I know, I know, we've been MIA

I arrived here in Shanghai about 2 weeks ago and have been having tons of fun ever since! I can not even tell you how glorious it is to be reunited with my husband. In the interest of trying to catch you up on life in the past 2 weeks (and due to the fact I wrote a shocking amount in my last post about the doctor), I will list the facts in list form:

- Arrived and had a few days to get over jet lag and settled into our apartment
- Our friends Jonathan and Bonnie came to visit the first Thursday I was here until last Wednesday
- We had a blast with them- learning the city, visiting cool tourist spots, weekend trip to Hongzhou and shopping
- We stayed at my parents while they were here since it is bigger and nicer
- After they left, we have been hanging out, working and just settling into life in Shanghai
- We found an awesome church and actually had a guest pastor speak last night from New Orleans- crazy!
- We tried the new Mexican restaurant and it is absolutely delicious- to quote Dave, "We're going to eat here every weekend"
- The baby is kicking up a storm at all times of the day now & my doctor here said all looks great
- I feel great and still love being pregnant- despite mild insomnia and hip growing pains :)
- My parents and grandparents arrive this weekend and we will be back to having a social life in China!

Now the exciting part of all this is that I did not bring my camera with me- I know, bad choice but I do have a small video camera- look forward to many clips starting now... Enjoy the Haases in Action!

It's Chinese to Me- Even When You Pee

Catchy title, huh?

Well, here is how the story goes... I awoke one lovely morning (read, grey and rainy) here in Shanghai to taxi across town for my first prenatal checkup. I arrived at Parkway Health, the large expat hospital here in town, where I was greeted at the entrance by a delightful (read, sloppily dressed and smoking) British girl. "You here for guyney?" (literal spelling of how she said it) I told her I was, at which point she guided me upstairs to the check in desk. The following moments went very well, seeing as how I have been unusually prepared and organized in my pregnant days...

"Hallow, you hav your paport?"

...No

"Okay, no prawlem- you hav your inswance car?"

...No

You see where I am going with this- I had nothing they needed from me. Luckily, it didn't seem to matter and might I give a brief shout out to my husband- who I called at work at this point. He, in fact, had his insurance card on him (really this is a miracle) and kindly read me the numbers I needed over the phone.

I was then escorted to the room where the young nurse became very enthusiastic about each thing she did from taking my temperature to my blood pressure. I believe she was learning english so she communicated everything about my temperature to me that you would ever want to know... such as the degree, average degree for my age (in farenheit and celcius), and then talked to me for a moment about how normal this was. Thrilling.

Then came the kicker, the doctor- who might I pause and say is very nice and professional (pictured above) entered the room. They handed me the small urine cup I am oh so familiar with and asked me to pee in it. Basic, right? WRONG. There was no escorting me to the restroom or even the process of the nurse and doctor stepping out of the room.

"Please give."

What?! You want me, a fat (read, pregnant), unbalanced and unstable girl wearing multiple layers of clothing including jeans to squat right here in this room in front of you and pee into this tiny cup (culprit pictured above). I immediately looked for a sink as I knew I would probably pee all over my hand at this point, found one and decided to just join the group and pee. Done and done. First box checked.

At this point the doctor and I spent some time learning about each other, which is actually a nice change from the hurried pace of doctors in the states. She was very interested as to why I had waved the medical testing for Down Syndrome and other possible fetal diseases. I explained my take on the situation to her and that it was important to my husband and I to bring this child into the world and love it regardless. I thought we were clear at this point.

Next I was given the full examination and asked to walk through the floor of the hospital to the Ultrasound room. Again, walking naked in your hospital gown and socks (hot, I know) is not something we strut around offices doing in the states.

I entered the ultrasound room. Now, the best way to explain this to you is that it looked like a Panic Room. All steel walls and a steel sliding door controlled by a switch on the wall. Interesting to say the least.

A cool feature is that here in China they only do 3D ultrasounds nowadays so I was able to see all sorts of cool things about our baby girl that I would have otherwise had to pay to see in the states. At this point- she proceeds to tell me that she is in fact checking for Down Syndrome and some other things (read, remember our previous conversation?) and that I will pleased to know my baby has none of them. Great. Above please meet our beautiful baby girl who does have two arms despite this picture. She does not have a name yet, although there are exactly 39 choices on a list all written out fully, nickname, initials, etc... for examination.

I walked back to my room where I left my clothes (hoping they would still be there), changed and proceeded to the checkout desk.

"That will be 548 US dollars."

Excuse me (I say a little shocked, but politely, of course)

"Your insurance doesn't allow us to file directly with them so you have to pay up front and deal with them separately."

This is great news considering I have a total of 4 appointments (do the math) while I am here and we all know how reliable and easy to work with our insurance companies are. I look forward to that.

Overall- I left the hospital giggling and really just in awe over my first appointment. Although there were no tears or tragedies, I did pee in a cup in front of 2 women- can I get a little sympathy?

Sleepless in Shanghai

What I looked like before my cut, approximately


OK, we've had friends visiting for the past week (another blog entry, I'm sure) and so we have been away from the world of blogging for too long. Please forgive us, it's just that the real world is fun, too!

Let's get back on track with the hilarious story of the day...

Today, I went to get a haircut. I looked like a baby lion with a miniature afro, and though I had been trying to hold out on getting my hair cut until I go back to the US, it was getting rediculous. So, I caved and cut my beautiful locks.

First, I had to spend an hour identifying the perfect place to cut my hair. I have heard too many horror stories to just blindly walk into a place where I can't communicate what I want, so I was willing to pay for a higher probability of success.

The problem is, there is a complete lack of good salons in Shanghai. The hairstyles over here are very different, and Asian people have very thick hair. So the white boys have it tough...another reason why it sucks to be a minority!

Anyways, I found a place called Tony and Guy, and was able to walk in for the bargain price of $40!! From the reviews, I estimated I had about a 50% chance of success. All started well, with a shampoo and head massage, and some unusual questions from the hairstylist (Do you part your hair this way, for instance, when my hair is clearly parted that way!). Here's where it got weird...

First sign of danger: the hairstylist had a bowl cut. I thought this was universally accepted as the worst haircut of all time (the perm being a close 2nd)!!! Why would someone who makes their living as a hairstylist be sporting the worst haircut ever? This is like a dentist with a chrome grill, in my opinion...I nearly walked out here.


My stylist, approximately.


On with the story...there were 3 people helping me in this salon, which is not uncommon since labor is fairly cheap here (see restaurants where you have 1 waiter for every table, for example). One was the hairstylist, a shampoo guy, and a third mystery man carrying 2 brushes. The first was like a duster, and the second like a blush brush. I was wondering what the heck this guy was supposed to do when it came to me in a flash.

As the hairstylist moved from one side to the other, the brush man would immediately step up and brush the hair from my shoulder and forehead. I had never seen such attention to detail in a salon before!!

Anyways, the guy cuts my hair for 1:15 in the most meticulous way I have ever seen, and brush man stood by his side the entire time. Poor Ash had to sit by and manage the process, she was bored out of her mind. Anyways, the guy actually did a great job, and helped me fashion a ChinaHawk (or Chawk, for short) at the end!! Only problem is I couldn't go back to work like this, so I had to go home and restyle.


Me, After.