Whose Idea Was It to Go Shoe Shopping This Week?

It's hard to believe that my first visit to Shanghai was a year ago this week.  It is an exciting time of year in Shanghai.  It's fall!  Mums are all abloom at the flower markets, moon cakes are for sale EVERYWHERE, and the Chinese flag is hanging from just about every thing in sight.  It's time for the Mid-Aututmn Festival and China's National Holiday.  Mid-Autumn is based on the Lunar calendar and everyone eats mooncakes.  While they look pretty, they generally don't taste very good.  Unless of coarse you enjoy eating red beans or green beans inside your cakes.

Pretty packages for a special time of year

I chose the good one.  It tasted like vanilla
on the inside. 

                          

 National Holiday celebrates the 63rd anniversary of the People's Republic of China and the Communist governement.  There are Chinese flags, people, police, and military all over the popular places in Shanghai.  We were told that most folks leave Shanghai during the holiday since we get a week off to celebrate.  That is really not the case.   There are people everywhere and we decide to take the children shoe shopping in the middle of it all!  The police and military served as traffic cops.  It is really a sight to see thousands of people move across the street based on the whistle of a policewoman or stop with the same.  The soldiers created walking  paths going in both directions.  It was awesome to see how peacefully that many people could move.  The Chinese Military has to have the tallest men in China.  We had to look up at them to take their pictures.  It was cool to see them moving in formation and standing above most of the crowd.

It took us about three steps to fit into the crowd.  An older woman gave the children Chinese flags to wave while walking Nanjing Road.  Nothing will turn a head faster than Western children waving Chinese flags.  I didn't think it was possible, but we turned Nanjing Road into a photography circus.  Even Emma Grace, who generally adores getting her picture taken, tired of the attention.  Had she been wearing her new shoes, that may have been a different story.  She was tired and ready to ride the river boat.  Which turned out to be an impossibility that night as well.  Just too many people and too long a wait.  So we decided to call it a night and wait for Jacky, our driver, to come pick us up.  That turned out to be the most exciting part of the the evening since we had to ingnore several policemen and trounce on the all the freshly planted red flowers in order to dive into the van while it was parked illegally on the side of the road. 

 

Thankfully, Jacky is a fast talker and a fast driver when he needs to be.



Happy Girl with three new pairs of shoes

Robert making friends with the police.