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Published: August 19th 2019
So 2 days ago I worked in 2 centres, meaning a change of hotel in the middle of the day. I took all my stuff with me, the hotel called a taxi and it took about 15 minutes, no unnecessary diversions and he had put the address in his satnav So found it no problem. After the first session getting a taxi wasn’t quite so easy. The centre rep had an app on her phone but the first one cancelled on her. Then all 3 of us tried unsuccessfully to flag one down in the street. They all sailed past, even the ones with green lights. They can’t have liked the look of me with all my bags. Eventually they managed to order another one. Again, no diversions.
The second hotel, the Amara Signature Shanghai, was utterly fabulous. It’s on Changshou Road, near the metro. I asked for a high floor and was given the 29th, one below the top. I only had 45mins before I had to go to the second centre, which was disappointing. I didn't know what to play with first! Everything was controlled electronically, quite unnecessarily and very inconveniently while I tried to work it all
out. The toilet seat opened when I went into the bathroom and was heated (which came in useful the next night). There was a programmable remote control for 2 users, not at the same time, with oscillate and pulsate settings which I failed to activate. Unlike other settings, which gave me a big shock and had me howling with laughter. The view was superb. When I got back after work they had been in to turn down the bed and tidy up a bit. It took me 10 minutes to work out how to open the curtains, and another 10 minutes to turn everything off when I finally went to sleep. The heated mirror in the bathroom turned it into a sauna, even when I’d (again, after a struggle) got the air con to turn down from a tropical 28 degrees. It was all a bit much. Breakfast was equally superb although the bread was such a long way from the rest of the buffet I only found it on the second day after asking some Spanish guests.
I went over to Family Mart to buy some snacks and take photos of others and was actually told off for
doing it, which was annoying after spending about a fiver on bits and bobs. One of these was a hot tea egg, 2RMB, not particularly interesting. The cheapest cans of beer were 6RMB for a large one.
The next day when I finished work there was a huge storm, like proper tropically raining and thunder and lightning continuously. i hadn’t checked the forecast and had no umbrella so the centre lent me one, to leave with the concierge to be collected. Otherwise I’d have drowned. As it was I had to wade ankle deep across the zebra crossing and my shoes were sopping wet. Back in the room I really needed them to be dry enough to pack so I left them upside down on the heated seat. The lid was furiously trying to close and making angry grinding noises, which I ignored. I realised I could possibly be breaking it but luckily didn’t and by the morning said shoes were dry as a bone!
Today was a travel day, Shanghai to Hefei by train.
A shame there was no rest day to do some sightseeing before moving on but heyho, I’m not on holiday and feel
lucky to be here.
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