End of lazy days

The expat life isn’t for the lazy.  First, you need to be “ON” all the time.  Difference in culture, lifestyles, traffic, language, etc etc etc and that means you need to have your head on a swivel every moment you are out of your own space; ears, eyes, and brain open.  Secondly, you walk a ton more than you think you will.  That’s been true in BKK and Shanghai both, but also applied to our time in Vietnam and Mexico.  Last, it’s that you are lost.  At least for the first year or so.  You don’t know where to get things.  Need batteries…. Figure it out.  Need TP…. Figure it out.  Need toothpaste, a mug, tea or coffee, a roll of tape… Gotta figure it out.  It takes work.  A willingness to adjust frequently.  A willingness to learn and roll with things.  A willingness to make mistakes and be a fool and you need to be ok with that.  You need to be willing to explore, get lost, find your way, and then do it all again the next day.  Needless to say; We love it and are having a blast.  It does, however, take a bit of work.

So, to address the elephant…..

I’ve been gone a while.  The girls were on their big break though.  5 weeks for Kiddo and 4 for J.  We bunkered down in that, though.  We explored Shanghai in that time.  We hung out.  I’ll have more to say in the future, but for now I’m going to pic dump form our time.  This isn’t even all of them.  J is the main pic taker and she have about 300 more that she’s not shared with me yet.  Also, Kiddo is 7 going on 8.  She has a ton more stamina now than she had before.  She can go all day without needing a break.  That means we could do more day trips.  Leave in the morning and be home in time for dinner.  That doesn’t leave a lot of time for blogging.  We did our best to get out every day.  Sure, we had some lazy days in there, but for the most part, in the last month, we’ve probably had 25 adventures.  Even if it was just walking to a new part of town to get a coffee and lunch at a noodle shop.  We saw museums, aquariums, and parks.  We ate at 2 dozen new places.  We went to a friend’s Bday party.  We lost some teeth and saw a bunch of bookstores and libraries.  We saw Wicked (Kiddo LOOOOOOVED it) and even though Wicked was the cinema version, J and Kiddo even went out one night and saw a play.  We had drums, I had a few of my med runs in there (every 2 weeks for my ADHD refills) and the girls came with and we explored.

It was a full month, with adventures galore.  I’ll take some time soon to break down the highlights, but I’m back and I thank you for the patience during the absence.  Welcome back, thanks for sticking with us, and more to come.