Shanghai Noon (With Significantly Less Owen Wilson)

Although we didn’t watch Shanghai Noon this week, we did watch the horrible trainwreck that is the Percy Jackson movies, and I just about had an aneurysm. Luckily we’ve made up by playing a lot of Super Mario Odyssey, a truly inspired, quality game.




Hank and I are getting along pretty well. Me, him and Oscar played a live-action interpretation of Dynasty Warriors for almost 2 hours the other night and there were laughs all around. I was amused to find he knew all of the same characters I knew. Also, apparently there’s a saying here about Cao Cao that roughly translates as “speak of the Devil” and I want to use it all of the time now.




We went to a big Safari park about a mile out of town and it was awesome. Lots of wildlife in large open areas. There was also a winter-themed indoor ice park, complete with snow, sledding, and ice sculptures. We played there until our faces were numb and then headed out for 5 rounds of bumper cars. After that, we ate lunch right in front of a window where an Elephant was taking a dump and then played with a pack of lemurs (which Oscar mistook for skunks). They jumped on top of Hank and his Mom, and we fed them apples as they perched on their shoulders.




I joined some fellow Au Pairs for a Catholic Mass that night. Apparently, it is the premier place to meet up with fellow foreigners, regardless of your faith. We got a big group together and ate out at an amazing restaurant.




On Sunday I went to Church in the morning and we met up for lunch afterwards at the branch president’s house. A lot of young single adults were present, so President suggested we all do a brief introduction of ourselves. It turned into more of an argument of whether Nigeria or Ghana was better, and why half of us wouldn’t reveal our true age. I came home that night and learned we were going to Shanghai in the morning, so I packed and hit the sack.




We traveled to Shanghai with another family who was friends with the host mom. They also had two kids and an Au Pair, Jack. He was from New York but his parents were Chinese. We talked about various things on the way up as we played with the kids. Our first day in Shanghai, we just went to various testing centers for the kids’ school, and ate at a really good restaurant. We got back to the hotel late and so we just bought some Wasabi chips and dried squid and watched some Fifa. The next morning, Jack and I went to the Oriental Pearl Tower in downtown Shanghai. We got some amazing views from the top and almost won an iPhone at an arcade to no avail. In the elevator, the hostess was standing right next to me and was speaking Chinese to everyone. At this point, we were going down. The hostess then turns to me, her face uncomfortably close to mine, and says “Hello, we are going to Earth.” I tried not to laugh and just said “Good news.”




We headed back to Hangzhou that afternoon and it’s been pretty slow since then. I watched an old Chinese drama with the Grandma which was actually beautiful. Oscar’s nephew is here for the next couple of days and they’ve been quite the team of trouble. I hope we can handle them.




I’m really zonked so this one is going to be short, sweet, and to the point. Zaijian!