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Published: October 4th 2009
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During the past week, I was fortunate enough to have my wish for visitors met twice! First, my dear friend Natalie’s parents Diane and Orry came to Shanghai as a stop on their 3 week China trip and I gave them a quick tour of my favorite spots. They were traveling with some of their close friends and it was fun to meet Linda and Nick and bond over being Wolverines. Go Blue! The weather was horrible but we marched through the soggy streets and had a good time even with the bad weather. I impressed myself with my ability to navigate Shanghai as if I had a sense of direction. I whipped out the map on several occasions, escorted my guests to lunch after confirming the location by calling a handy info line for visitors I am fond of using. My favorite moment was when I convinced a very stubborn taxi driver to let us pile in 5 adults to his taxi. This is a big no-no here and during holidays the drivers are much more likely to follow the rules. I begged, pleaded and finally he gave in. We had a non-Chinese lunch (their request after eating Chinese food
for the past 3 weeks). After lunch, I took them back to their hotel via the subway when taxis were nowhere to be found.
We celebrated China's 60th birthday in style at the Shangri La international buffet with two other families. It was an amazing meal and we had tons of fun. Emily spent the night with her pal, Alexis and we took Nathan back home via subway. The streets and trains were very crowded with people out and about. The entire country was on vacation.
The 60th anniversary of China was a big deal in China. Not sure about the rest of the world, but it was huge in Beijing and even in Shanghai. Sadly, the rain caused many of the festivities to be canceled in our neighborhood park. Emily and I went for a rainy day walk in our sassy rain boots and snapped some pictures of the scene. While the first of October was a rain out, the second through fourth have been gorgeous weather days.
Then, our friend Tony came to town and brought us 3 lbs of Peet’s coffee, wrapped in Ziploc bags and delivered when we met for dinner last night.
Before we met Tony, Mark and I snuck out as soon as the ayi arrived and went to have a drink. It was a place Mark knew about and I’d never noticed in Jing An Park. We got to the main gate and it was locked. We could see people in the park and at the restaurant so we knew there must be another entrance. We walked around and eventually found it but we agreed we should jump the main gate on our way out later. We had a glass of wine and enjoyed the scenery and then we went to jump the gate. It was not that high, but I was wearing a skirt. So, I kicked my shoes through the gate, hoisted myself up and over and then Mark had to follow my graceful act. We both thought this might end in a police chase, but no. It was a non-event. Other than the people staring at us as we did our climb-over. That was a little funny.
We met up with Tony at his hotel and headed off to dinner. Tony always shows us new spots in our town. He took us to a Shanghainese restaurant
that was fantastic. We measure the true local-ness by how many western faces we see. In this case—there was Mark and there was me. I should mention that many (most) foreigners get out of town during the big holidays—just as we are about to do. But, still, we know authentic Chinese by now and this was the real deal.
As we leave for Vietnam, we are hoping for good weather. I did hear from one hotel where we had a reservation that they are closed due to tsunami damage. The storms have ended and we have a new reservation at a hotel that is open and not damaged. And we’re off. Next post will be from (or at least about) Hanoi, Vietnam.
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Fred
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go Tony
Tony is a GOD for bringing you Peets. Have a great trip. I hear it's wonderful. At least that's what this guy on a cooking show said.