NYZfamily

As most of the parents out there I do the clothes shopping for my toddler myself. I do not buy expensive designer made outfits as it is known kids get messy quite easily. Most of the times I have to change my daughter’s outfit twice or even three times a day. So where can you get decent and affordable clothes for your toddler in China? The answer is simple - on taobao.com. Taking into account a number of shops there, the choosing the right shop might be a very frustrating process. Therefore, in this post, I will share the names of shops where I usually purchase items for my daughter. Hair accessories and a dress by H&M, tights by Jelly baby Old Navy . Probably one of my favorite brands for everyday clothes. Outfits are super bright, trendy, qualitative and not expensive at all. Great selection of clothes both for boys and girls. Also, they always have sales and customer service is great!   Carter’s . I used to purchase for my daughter super cute onesies there when she

Prior moving to Beijing, we lived in Wuxi for 2 years and this is our second year in the capital of China. In this post, I want to share my personal experience by comparing life in these two beautiful cities.  Weather/Air pollution. Summer in Wuxi is humid and hot, while winter is chilly. Beijing’s summer is quite similar to Wuxi’s; however, winter is windier and colder. In terms of air pollution, Beijing kicks the ass of Wuxi , especially during winter! But people say that situation with air pollution is getting better every year. I hope there will be no air pollution in the near future.   Travelling opportunities. By living In Wuxi, you can easily go to beautiful cities of China such as Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing , and Hangzhou by high-speed train or explore the third-largest lake in China Taihu lake that is located in there. However, if you want to fly to other countries, in most cases, you will have to go to Shanghai first. I find it very inconvenient. And from Beijing ,

Yay! Finally, we made it to PACE Beijing. However, getting there was a pain. In our first attempt, we just showed a taxi card that we found on timeoutbeijing.com to the driver and he left us at the wrong spot. We were so pissed because he left us 15-20 minutes away (by foot) from the place where the exhibition was being held. Plus we went at around 12 p.m. so you can imagine how hot it was in Beijing by then. Hungry and angry we decided just to go back home. So rule number 1 -  DON'T t trust the taxi card on the website. It will not help you at all. Once we came home the sun went down, our stomach was filled and our moods went up then we made a decision that this time we will make it to PACE. It was a principal now! We didn’t make the mistake that we did before and ordered didi taxi. And just like that, we were at the PACE Beijing Temlab exhibition. We got our tickets in about 15 minutes and were inside of exhibition in about 25 minutes. As soon as we entered, we were

Can we all agree that kids nowadays have everything that one might dream about? And yesterday we had a chance to visit kids’ library in Beijing that is called Ready Reading. Apparently, this library is for kids aged 0-9. We were super excited to go to this library because it was our daughter’s first time at the library and we have seen its online pictures on WeChat. Once we arrived there we were not disappointed at all. We were amazed by a unique design of it. The library is very bright and colorful just like the kids love it.  And what I loved about this library it provides everything for kids. They have changing rooms, lockers (with super cute key chains), socks to borrow, snacks, drinks not to mention the wide range of books both in English and Chinese. In addition to that, they sell lots of wooden toys. They also own AQI machines (I saw 2 big ones). It is very important to provide clean indoor air, especially in Beijing. We arrived at around 4.30 p.m. and it was pretty b

From now on, I decided to write once a week about living in Beijing as a multicultural family.  I think most people are curious about how local people treat us ( blasian family) in Beijing. In Beijing, I should say no one cares. Everyone is minding their own business. However, sometimes people stare at us (especially when I am with my husband) but we don’t get negative stares even though many Chinese people suppose that I am also Chinese. But once they hear my ‘awesome’ Chinese pronunciation everything clears out. Mostly, people are just curious about where we originally from and our daughter. They just love her. She gets all kinds of compliments and boy, oh boy, she just loves all the attention. Even though I don’t speak Chinese that well I can understand what they are talking about. Believe me, they never say bad things in our presence. Nevertheless, I do not really know what they say once we walk away (but who cares, right?). Anyway, in my humble opinion, Beijing is a ver

Eating out at a nice restaurant with your toddler and at the same time enjoying yourself may seem like an impossible thing to accomplish. However, at kids’ café “Lilliput”, believe me, it is very much possible. So what is special about this café? This café is designed for kids and parents.  By word of mouth, “Lilliput” is a café chain from Korea. It has a huge indoor playground with sand pit, ball pool, interactive screen, crawling tunnel, blocks, dolls, cars and all kinds of toys. Inside there are cameras on every corner so that a parent can sip a drink but still watch over his child. Also, it has the bathroom that is specially designed for kids and it even has a napping room for kids. I think that is brilliant! So when you walk into café, you have to take off your shoes and borrow socks (if you don’t have one) and put on slippers. The shoes are stored in the lockers.  Then, you have to pay for entrance at the counter. Usual price is 128 RMB for 2 hours. But we paid 100 RMB

Constant hair care is needed if you want to keep your hair healthy. Therefore, I decided to trim my hair a little bit and get some kind of hair treatment. First, I searched for group purchasing deals on dianping.com (my favorite website these days) and I found a lot! Then I started reading reviews about the services of each hair salon because I didn’t want to destroy my hair (that my husband loves).  Finally, my friend and I decided to go to “Carley” hair salon that is located in Sanlitun. However, we decided not to purchase the voucher and just to show up and see what type of hair salon it was (NOTE: don’t trust the pictures on commercial websites). And you know, that was a smart decision! Because turns out “Carley” hair salon was closed for construction!!! We were so disappointed, but luckily, we saw a nice-looking hair salon that is called “3 AM” and we came to a decision just to go there. As soon as we walked in, a bunch of hair dressers followed us to figure out what we w

Well…to be honest, sometimes the air pollution in Beijing is no joke. Those days we have no choice but to keep our beautiful daughter indoors. And as I mentioned in my previous posts, as a mom I have to do my best to be creative and entertain my daughter. And, one of the ways to keep my daughter happy is to read a book with her and teach her something new. Getting a decent book for kids is very easy in China. Because they have awesome “Taobao” that has anything and everything, plus they deliver your packages to your door! Isn’t it amazing?! Anyways, the books that my daughter enjoys reading are Usborne Lift-the-flap books. So far we purchased Lift-the-flap Counting book, Shapes book and Colors book. They are all in English. These books are both educational and fun as your toddler gets a chance to lift the flap on each page and find something. Each book has about 80 flaps to lift that your child can discover items and name them. Also, you can get your child talking about each

One of the best ways to shop for goods and services in China is group purchasing 团购 (Tuángòu). Most popular group purchasing websites in China are dianping.com, nuomi.com, meituan.com, etc. They sell everything starting from food ending up with luxurious hotels twice sometimes even three times cheaper than the actual price. You may wonder what the retailer gains from selling their service that cheap. They will get an access to the whole new customers. So this is a win-win situation for everyone! Well, the bad news is that it is all in Chinese. How can a foreigner who doesn’t communicate in Chinese purchase vouchers? Here is how: You need to be fearless and open-minded. Don't worry as these websites are safe in terms of personal information. You might want to download Google Chrome with the help of which you can translate any website from Chinese to English. Once everything is translated, start searching for whatever you are looking for. In our case, we are always seeking s

As a mom of an energetic toddler, I can tell you that you have to be creative all the time. Staying all day at home is a no-no for us. Gladly, almost every mall in China offers an inside playground for kids (that is usually located on the third floor). So, every once in a while we take our two-year-old daughter to the mall playground that is located at Taiyanggong Capital Mall. What I like about this playground are the price and space. It is huge and offers ball pool, slides for older and younger kids, cars, baby  carts for grocery shopping, blocks and all kinds of tab le toys. My daughter m ostly  loves the slide for bigger kids and table  toys through which she learns letters and numbers. This playground is perfect for parents to let their kids play and interact with other kids. I usually bring a cup of coffee with me and just observe my child. The area is very clean and safe. The staff is always watching kids so that no one can leave without a parent. After  playing i n sid