Adventure to Puxi

This is out of chronological order because I thought I had already posted it...
A couple weeks ago Eric and I took off to Puxi (west side of the river) which is like going to another country in some respects. It is always an adventure to go in a taxi here with my limited Mandarin, but Eric had a birthday party to go to and it was our driver's day off.


Eric asked if we were going to see his school friends when we got in the taxi. I told him we were and then he proceeded to only speak to me in Mandarin all the way to the party. Most of it I didn't understand and the taxi driver had a good chuckle the whole way there.
Above is Eric and Benjamin (aka BenBen). He is the one who had a baby brother born the same day and same hospital as Aaron (Jonas)

The party was at an Irish Pub. They had games and a kid friendly buffet.

He was excited even after he had been eliminated from the game. Can you see how much bigger he is than the other kids in his class?

Getting prizes

BenBen's mom (Katharina) with Aaron.

"You can't see me!" "Oh yes I can!"

They asked him if he wanted to play "Go Fish", which he loves to play at home (with cards). We were both surprised to find a bowl with REAL fish! Then I was even more shocked that they took the fish home! In our case, it got to go to church in it's bag and then home. We had to borrow some fish food from Amanda and her family (they have a huge tank), but Jason (what Eric named the fish) died after about 24 hours. (I asked why he named it Jason and he said, "because I know how to spell Jason - J A S O N, and I need to know how to spell my pet's name!")

Chinese birthday candles

Catherine is the birthday girl (in grey and pink coat)