Babies and natural disasters

Baby Sam (who's not that small anymore) has gotten a baby sister.

It feels a bit strange to try and write a regular blog post with everything thats going on in Japan. The tsunami aftermath is simply horrific, I almost cannot read the news updates and look at the pictures. Makes it hard to go on and think about other normal stuff, even though its impossible not to.

One stream of light in this darkness is that my sister gave birth to her second child just the other night. A baby girl, quite big (4300 grams) as she was 12 days delayed. This gorgeous little baby girl (who is yet to be given a name) is my second niece (+ one nephew) that has been born while Ive been in China. At times like this I get insanely homesick. And when I get like that, I go on shameless baby shopping sprees, making sure I get this baby everything that she could possibly need from her aunt in China (yeah, Sam and Malou my other nephew/niece are the best dressed babies in Malm. One Christmas when I was going home I literally filled the whole suitcase with baby clothes). Not much else I can do from here.

Other than that its been a good wknd, that unfortunately went by a bit too fast. Its a lot warmer in Shanghai compared to what it was like last year at this time (it was around 18 degrees this wknd and we sat outside and enjoyed lunch). Its wonderful at the moment but Im not looking forward to when the thermometer shows 35 degrees again. Then again, nothing I can do about that, so better just to go with it than to complain and worry about it. There are more important things to worry about. My heart goes out to everyone in Japan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40,000 hairy crabs released in Yangtze

Image
THE city government yesterday freed 40,000 hairy crabs into the mouth of Yangtze River near the Qingcaosha Reservoir, the first step in a five-year campaign to repair the ecosystem to improve the water quality in the reservoir that provides tap water for millions of residents. The hairy crabs will help establish a complete food chain in the river to help more fish and other aquatic animals survive in the river, Zhuang Ping, deputy director of the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The released crabs, about half female and half male, will eat plankton while some of their offspring will become food for meat-eating fish higher in the food chain, said Zhuang, who is leading the water-improvement program. "The better ecosystem the water has, the better its water quality will be," he said. With a capacity of 438 million cubic meters, the reservoir is providing tap water to about 10 million
Keep reading

Shanghai port consolidates its position as world's busiest

Image
SHANGHAI, the world's busiest container port, will consolidate its title this year and leverage its record throughput to become a multi-faceted provider of port services. The city, which overtook Singapore as the world's biggest container handler last year, saw its annual container traffic volume surpass 30 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) yesterday. The figure hits an unprecedented level in the world's port history and marks a new leg in Shanghai's voyage to become a global shipping center by 2020. China's remarkable trade boom is reflected in the Shanghai port numbers, which went from 7,951 TEUs in 1978 to 29.05 million TEUs in 2010. The city's customs oversaw a total of US$790 billion worth of imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year - a 19.3 percent year-on-year increase. And its port handled 23.9 million TEUs over the first 10 months, ahead of that of 23.56 million TEUs at Singapore Port. Shanghai International Port (Group) Co,
Keep reading

Praise, scorn for teacher's odd command

Image
A middle school math teacher has stirred controversy after forcing 20 of his students to slap their own faces for three minutes because they made noise in class and scored poorly on exams. Angry local residents are demanding that the teacher resign and asking the school to announce a punishment. But some of the teacher's students, including some who were forced to slap themselves, are calling for leniency. The incident occurred in a class at Donglu Middle School in Pudong on Tuesday when the math teacher surnamed Yang ordered 20 students in his class to slap their faces after he was irritated by them making noise in class. The students said Yang was known as a very strict teacher, so almost all the students obeyed his order and started slapping themselves in the face for about three minutes. Those who slapped too lightly were told by the teacher to slap harder, students told the Oriental Morning Post. Yang's behavior has sparked anger among local residents, especially so
Keep reading