Almost home, I thought one Saturday afternoon, sitting in the bus after some shopping at the city center. I look out of the window and I see… a camel in front of Wanda Plaza, the local shopping mall! I had to look twice: yes it was a real one! I still have no idea what it was doing there. Santa’s new helper? Where did he leave Rudolph, then?

From what we see here, Christmas is a big thing: all the malls and shops have the lights and Chinese versions of western Christmas carols – quite amusing ones… I’ll try to get you some pics of the fabulous bling-bling Eiffel Tower, the huge cake, dancing lights of the five star hotel etc.

ChriDid someone say shopping? The very first thing I bought for myself was this really warm down vest. I have a warm winter coat, but it’s not here yet, so I needed something to keep me warm, because it’s getting cooler here, temperatures have been around zero in the morning. Still waiting for our shipment and all the  warm clothes to come.

Well, technically, the shipment is already in Ningbo, but it’s at the cargo company. To get it handed over to customs Niko had to travel to Shanghai (that’s 220 km) to get the one missing paper, so that we don’t have to pay taxes for our own things. Now, we need to get our passports back from the police, who has them for the residence permit, and then Niko has to go to the local shipping company that they will take it to customs. Then Niko has to meet the customs broker, who will take care of the paper work. We still don’t know, where to actually get our stuff, but here is keeping fingers crossed that everything goes well… Not too easy, is it?

Telling about moving to Ningbo, I know I’ve told my friends it’s close to Shanghai. But the definition of close is somewhat relative. Looking from Tucson, or from Helsinki, it really is right next to Shanghai. But it’s still a three hour drive from here to there, so in reality it’s quite far away. Therefore play dates in Shanghai isn’t really an option for me and Benjamin and we can also forget about the Finnish school in Shanghai.

Talking about clothes, my size here is extra large! 🙂 Seriously, I’ve got the sweater and vest to prove it.  (I was small or medium in Europe and in States.) Luckily I’m not bigger, I would have serious problems finding clothes here. Besides, I’m still not even tall here. Before coming to China, people kept telling me that I would be tall amongst the little people here. Imagine my reaction the very first morning at the hotel breakfast, when the first Chinese ladies I saw were about two meters tall. Later we found out that the women pro basketball team was in town to play against the Ningbo team.