As predicted by Hubby, United won 1 : 0 thanks to Shinji Kagawa that scored the goal but Shanghai Shenhua was playing well too. The next day we went to the Kerry Hotel to see the team up close, they were really young players! My daughter said ” Mami, they look like school boys” well, they arrive together in a Bus, all suited up nicely, most of them are barely 21 years old, good observation there Little Miss!

To see more pictures of the game and United players go to my Facebook page (scroll up, its on the right side bar of my blog, Esti’s photography) also do click LIKE on my page if you enjoy my photos, thank you.

Being an Island girl, I want to have the perfect sunset shot just like the good old days back home in Bali, unfortunately I can’t have it here. It is way too bright before it dissapear behind the skyscraper. After several tries I am settled with these photos, they’re taken from 2 different balconies of our home, at dusk. Do double click on the photo to get larger image.

Afterwards Little Miss and I went out for a walk around our block, the temperature was pleasant, we love Shanghai summer.

Got my Thai food craving fulfilled at The Cook today thanks to their current Thai food promotion. Khun Suksan, the visiting Thai Chef made me spicy Somtam Poramai (mixed fruit) with lots of priki nu (bird eye chili), if I close my eyes I could be in Bangkok for a moment, it was heavenly. Next week he will conduct Thai cooking lesson in the Kerry Hotel and I did register to attend it, more authentic Thai food to enjoy in Shanghai, yaaayyy!

In Bangkok, you can find Somtam stall anywhere, from a hole in the wall to the fancy one in beautiful restaurant. Somtam is Thai salad consists of crunchy fruits and vegetables with delicious dressing made of chili, tomato, fish sauce, crushed peanuts, etc. Somtam itself means “sour pound” which means all ingredients got mixed together in mortar and pestle. The best somtam experience for Little Miss (although she didn’t get to eat any, since she is severely allergic to nuts) is in Salathip restaurant at Shangri-La Bangkok,the restaurant team has a unique way to prepare and serve somtam Thai, if you order “Somtum Rock and Roll” from the menu this is what you will get :

Within the 2 years that we reside in Bangkok my husband and I developed our own liking towards Somtam, his favorite is bamboo shoot somtam and mine is corn somtam. Among several visit to Chatuchak Market (or JJ as the local calls it, it is the largest market bazaar in Asia, only open on Saturday and Sunday) I saw this lady selling Somtam to stalls owner and visitor, she has her wares on 2 large baskets and transporting them around with carrying pole, freshly made Somtam at your footstep. Unfortunately I didn’t dare to give it a try at that time, it must be aroy maak (delicious, in Thai language), yummy.

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As mentioned earlier in Packed,Unpacked and Settling Down these are view of Century Park and Pudong sky scraper from our balcony, home sweet home.

Latest update from us, we’ve shifted from the hotel to our “home”.

We’ve been apartment hunting since mid of June here in Pudong area, found a great place just across the street from the hotel with an amazing view of the park and Pudong skyscraper (will upload pictures soon, it’s a promise). Cut the story short, we put an offer to the owner and the unit is available by 2nd week of July. Must say that we are lucky, the whole process went pretty smooth for Shanghai standard.

Anyway, it took me a week to sorted out items that I don’t want the movers to pack for us in the old home, 2 days for the movers to shift all our belongings from the old place to the new place while we stay in (another) hotel room. Then 3 days to re-arrange the furnitures in our new place, set up the storage, get internet & cableTV, etc. at last … we are HOME.

In the meantime, Little Miss still managed to have her summer holiday wish fulfilled, she has endless play dates (at some point went mad with face painting & temporary tattoo!), plenty of splish splash fun at the swimming pool, lot’s of shopping and several trips to IKEA. She loves IKEA (just like her Mami haha),we told Little Miss that she can choose any bunk bed for her new room, got her pink swivel chair for her study and also mini cactus as her new pet, definitely an excellent start to get settle in our new place for her. Below are some pictures of Little Miss Happy taken with my iPhone.

Alright, that is all for now, we are off for bike ride and food shopping, have a great week everyone.

To mark the first day of summer holiday Little Miss and I were staying-in late (well, in bed for me, colouring in playroom for her) followed by late breakfast (uhm, 9-ish) at the hotel club lounge. We’ve got our energy level up so we decided to went out for a nice 5K bike ride around Century Park, initially she wants to venture out to other part of the neighbourhood near the canal but I told her we will do it another day since we have plenty of time to explore ahead of us.

Then we went back home to cool off, she grab her Nintendo DS, right away playing game with her cycling gears on, doesn’t want to waste a single minute of freedom

Her current favourite game is Dora’s Adventure, every now and then I hear her blurted out some Spanish words to me in between her game playing “Mami,  zanahorias is carrots!” or  ”Pepino is cucumber!” etc, funny girl. I love to have her around, the house is much more alive when she’s bouncing around in between game playing, sketching (she is a budding artist) and singing, endlessly.

The highlight of the day for her is no bedtime curfew. I let her stay up later than the normal school days evening so she can spend time with her Papi too.  We still have our early dinner as usual around 6 pm but this time around since it’s Friday and the Upper Deck is open I let her play at the outdoor playground till 7 pm. She brought her skipping rope and ask me to take a picture of her, Aunty Inez, we are thinking of you.

Then she show me her latest trick on the bouncing castle, a forward roll!

She did it more than 10 times for me since the low lighting made me miss capturing her move but I definitely will sign her up for Gymnastic class school ECA in the next term, she’s a natural!

Still high on energy, to end the evening, she went swimming with her Papi and here I am exhausted, sitting by the pool side made me re-think about the school break. I have to keep up and stay fit to survive the holiday, wish me luck.

We didn’t go to see the dragon boat race to Suzhou this time around but we went to see the second best, motorized dragon boat at the Kerry Hotel lobby. The Hotel management (Kerry Krew) went to neighbourhood Police Department, Local Hospital and Fire Department to hand out a nice lunch to people that is working and away from their families on this holiday. It was another rainy day in Shanghai but the “Dragon Boat” surely bring smiles to everyone near it.

Little Miss had the privilege to go up on the “boat” and beat the massive drum in the back of it for couple of minutes, FUN!

Cut the story short we went for a bike ride after lunch (hubby take off on weekdays sometimes so we can have a day to ourselves to do errands and exploring the city while Little Miss is in school) towards the canal near Jinqiao in Pudong. I was frightened when we cross the street nearby the highway especially when I see this guy in the bike line in front of me just went off cross the street while the lights were still red!

Nevertheless I managed to cross the intersection safely and off we go. Surprisingly the canal has a very green surroundings, I’ve read that Pudong in the past is a farmland but I didn’t realize that patches of vegetables and fruits garden still exist nearby the city.

Seen some massive villas along both side of the canal, it felt like I’m in Europe instead of China. We crossed the bridge to a small compound where the locals live and Hubby took me to a local wet market (open bazaar) that he’s been telling me about. The thing is, I love market. I’ve been to several wet market in Shanghai but later on finding it out to be catered for westerner hence different produce were available, this was my first encounter with local Chinese wet market and I am so excited.

Since its midday not so many customers in sight therefore I can explore the aisles freely, these are some of my findings :

Did I purchase anything?

Not yet but definitely coming back in the near future for early morning vegetables buying slash more picture taking, now that I know where it is I can get back on my own anytime I want to. We had a water break nearby the local compound, it was a hot sunny day and I can see all the locals aired their laundry out, very common sight in this part of the world.

We ride back home, decided to wait for an hour or so till Little Miss got drop off by her school bus then I changed her quickly, off we go again with our bikes towards the outside bicycle lane in Century Park. It was her first time riding a bike on the street, the best part of China is you have bicycle lane on the road which is very good for a nervous mom like me, it is not entirely safe but I have a piece of mind that we are not completely riding next to a bus. We went around the park, did a quick dash to my Korean Supermarket for drinks and snack then back to the apartment.

Little Miss and I will definitely exploring more areas of Pudong with our bike when school is out, can’t wait!!