Beach in Shanghai
When we were first taken to tour around our apartment complex, it was pointed out that there was a “wave pool” and a “man-made beach”. We thought nothing of it, as it wasn’t on Ian’s multi-criteria analysis (the criterion for us were things that are WAY more practical, such as, distance to work, kitchen facilities, location, etc). Our first six months in Shanghai have passed rather blissfully … a relatively mild winter followed by a pleasant spring.
Frankly the idea of hitting a man-made beach was a little strange for us ”pro-nature” types. However, with some suspicion, we went down to the beach with Michael a couple of weeks ago. Boy, were we in for a surprise!
Firstly, the beach was packed! Interestingly enough, we live in a country with supposedly 1 billion Chinese, but the beach was filled with all westerners (baking themselves)! Apparently, the Chinese who do live in our complex laugh at us from their apartment about these “aliens” burning themselves in the stifling heat! But the truth comes when you look at the kids on the beach - they were having so much fun! Little ones like Michael just loved the freezing kiddie pool and the bigger kids just have a ball riding the “so-called” waves. The adults are all chilled, either having a beer or checking out the neighbors whom we didn’t know had been quite so gorgeous!
As for our Michael, he just had a ball! Although the weather on that day was in the high 20s, the water was still freezing. Michael kept giggling in his dada’s arms in the freezing water and Ian literally had to drag him out because Michael was turning blue! After our fun afternoon (yep, we hung out there for the entire afternoon), we realized that Michael’s knowledge of a beach is one that is surrounded by 50-storey tall buildings! Gosh, we can’t wait until he sees real waves and a real beach in Australia!!!
Until next time, we just had poh poh and gung gung for two weeks and they had a great great time!!!
Love from Shanghai and enjoy our photos at the beach and with Michael’s gung gung and poh poh.
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| Michael’s album – 19 months old |
