Brennan goes to Shanghai

Last week Brennan had his first business trip since moving to Singapore. He is going to share some pictures he took and write about his experience there. But first I will just briefly sum up our week without him. 

It was a little different than trips he has had in the past for me, since I couldn't just run to my parents' house and hang out. It got off to a rocky start with me getting a stomach bug the night before he left. It was not a very restful night and not a great day to start my time alone with the kids. But they were super good and we just had a chill first day until I felt better. The next day we checked out a new and awesome splash pad with friends. And on Thursday we hit up the zoo. I went sans stroller this time. It was certainly tiring but I think it was a good choice. We really had a fantastic time, and I'm not going to lie, 6 buses later I pretty much felt like super mom. :)

Tatum loved the splash pad. It was a bit of a challenge alone since Declan isn't exactly a water lover, but we mostly made it work. The kid at the bottom of this slide almost got a slug from me. ;) Seriously, he was such a punk!

Declan really established this awful habit during the week. No matter how much milk I give him he leaves about this much in the cup. Drives me crazy!

One evening I took the kids out for a walk before bed and made the mistake of walking in front of Tatum for a minute (she was on her new pedal bike). She still spends a lot of time looking at her feet while she pedals and she ran right into me. It didn't take long for blood to be all over my flip flop and we had to head home. Tatum was bawling. At first I thought it was because she felt bad. Nope. She was sad we couldn't go to the park. Gee, thanks Tatum! WARNING: Graphic image below.

That was pretty much our week. And now here is Brennan. :)

That's right- Here I am :) While Rachel was at home corralling the kiddos, I had a business trip in Shanghai. I wish Rachel and the kids could have come with me because it was pretty neat. My first night there, I walked to a restaurant close by the hotel room to grab some food. The view was pretty nice so I took a few quick pictures.

All of the employees in the office were pretty friendly. They recommended that I go and check out "The Bund" on Wednesday night. I was taken to a pretty fancy restaurant with an amazing view. The food was pretty good, but the view was the real reason we went there.

 Some pictures during the car ride over:

We ordered an appetizer that has a description saying something about Australian beef. I thought it sounded great, but out came this dish with thin sliced raw beef on it with salad and cheese slices on top. It was a lot different than anything I have ever eaten, but not bad. I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't get some nice grilled beef. 

The descriptions of the food on the menu really threw me off. I ordered a "salad" with mango crab meat, and other fruit. Out came this thing that looked like a biscuit with mango jelly spread on it. It was mushed up crab meet, not a biscuit. Unfortunately I was correct about the mango jelly part. 

 As I mentioned earlier, the view was fortunately much better than the food. The purple tower you can see in the pictures is actually just an antenna.

 

I decided to do some walking around before heading back to the hotel room. The whole area was nice. I am glad someone recommended that I go to the Bund.

On Thursday I went to the City God temple area. I was in desperate search of some souvenirs for my family, and I was told that this was the place to go if you want to barter. The area had a lot of older looking Chinese buildings.

 A dragon-turtle... Why not?

I thought these lanterns were pretty neat. So neat, in fact, that I thought Rachel would be happy if I got one for her and brought it back as a souvenir. Let's just say she was less than impressed.... At least I think it is cool!

Overall, it was a really neat experience. I am happy that we are getting these wonderful experiences out here on the other side of the world. I am especially grateful that Rachel was such a trooper and took care of the kids while I went on this business trip. She is a freaking rock star.