Our day had a very early start since we needed to leave at 6:00 am. Getting up early and being ready to leave has become a special talent of ours.
Friday evening we packed arranging things so we would only need to open our carryon bag in the next hotel. We had a big discussion about spreading things out between the large suit case and the duffle bag that we packed to make sure we could have room for shopping. We plan to shop on our last day in Shanghai. Neal really wanted to try his best not to have the extra bag and it looked like his plan would work. Shortly after he closed the suit case, our phone rang. We were told the Qing Dao School for the blind had gifts for us. They were delivered to our room and the boxes were huge. The boxes were so pretty we decided to try to bring them home so the duffle bag ended up having to be packed.
Our taxi was due at 6:00 but the driver was about 10 minutes late. Once we figured out that the taxi was for us we loaded up our bags and we were off.
Our driver seemed to be deep in a texting conversation. When he could not text at a stop light he pulled over. I guess I should be glad about that. We were getting later and later.
Neal was able to use his phone to find a way to give the driver our terminal information in Chinese and the driver showed Neal that he had a copy of all our flight information. We felt a little better knowing he knew what time we needed to be at our flight.
When we got to the airport he helped us tell people we were late and needed to hurry. He was really sweet. He spoke absolutely no English.
We made it to our gate with a few minutes to spare.
Our flight was just about an hour but they did give us a box of snacks, none of which were worth eating.
Since this was a domestic flight not many people checked their bags. We got our bags really quickly and getting a taxi was simple. We were headed into the city and our new hotel.
We are spending our last night at the Majestic. Although it is a bit fancy I am not in love with it. We do have a better bed and the room is fine but we miss the Astor House.
We had Kentucky fried chicken for lunch. This seems to be the most popular American chain. The kids working there spoke more English than we have found anywhere. We share a number 1 meal. The chicken was very spicy and the fries quite good although they tasted a little different. I think everything here is fried in peanut oil. They had no diet soda.
We then walked to People’s Square. It was so crowded we did not stay long but we can say we were there.
We wandered through a huge food court sort of place with all kinds of lovely fruits and vegetables. Some of them we certainly did not recognize. They had a huge section for Chinese medicine. If we were staying longer I would love to learn more about this.
We tried to get into two restaurants that looked interesting, for dinner. We had to go across the street to the Meridian to find someone who could help us but both restaurants were full. We are going to eat in the French restaurant in the Meridian.
We just returned from dinner and a short walk. This city really does like lights. Even I can see them they are so bright.
Our dinner was lovely. I had a nice cold glass of white wine. The restaurant was quiet. Quiet is hard to find around here.
We are headed to bed to rest up for our day of shopping. Ming’s student is coming to help us.