Mom’s Visit Part 1
Other than having to endure the worst traffic I have experienced in Shanghai, everything went smoothly picking up my mom from Pudong International Airport on Friday. Mom made a heroic effort to stay awake and we managed to make an appearance at Scott's birthday party... which also gave mom a chance to meet some of the American expat crowd I hang out with (and watch football games with.)
Saturday ended up being a lazy errand day. The weather was dreary and we got a late start after I struggled to keep up with my mom's routine of morning exercises. We eventually started the day with a stroll down Xianxia Road (the main road in my district) and a trip to the Bank of China to exchange dollars for RMB. After we headed to Carrefour for what I thought would be a quick shopping trip... silly me.
Even with a light drizzle outside, Carrefour was a madhouse and we decided to grab a bite at Sushi Express, a great little restaurant where you sit down and pick individual plates of sushi off of a conveyer belt as they go past. Surviving lunch, we headed upstairs, grabbing lightbulbs to replace the ones that had been burned out since I moved in... no kidding, you know the bachelor lifestyle has gone bad when you won't even buy bulbs. Another floor up and I discovered with glee that the store had recently expanded (doubled) it's already sizeable wine selection... so in addition to the actual necessities (like bread, water, etc) I also picked up a nice mix of red wines recommended to me by the surprisingly helpful and not-snooty French manager of the store. We discovered, to our dismay, that the taxi line in the basement was backed up all the way into the store... ultimately, we waited 45 minutes to get a taxi for a 10 minute ride to my apartment... sweet. After unloading the groceries and cleaning my apartment to "mom" standards, we had a great meal at Micasa, the new Tapas restaurant on Hongmei Road.
Sunday was a long, long day... literally, we walked everywhere. Starting in Old Town in the morning, we browsed the Antique market and made our way to the Yu Gardens, which even in the rain were spectacular. After lunch, we walked up to the Bund and then all the way up the river to Nanjing road and made the impressive walk to People's Square. Grabbing dumplings-to-go from my favorite street vendor, my mom and I headed back to my apartment and enjoyed them while watching "When do we eat?" Mildly ironic.
Monday was slated for an all-day trip to Suzhou and ended up being an all-day adventure in transportation. Because of the rain, it was hard to get a taxi to the Shanghai Railroad Station in the morning and the cab we did finally hail down had a rookie (literally first week on the job) driver at the wheel. He got us nowhere fast, and we jumped ship when he finally got us to the metro station closest to my apartment. From there we rode line 3 directly to the station but missed the 8:20 train to Suzhou. The ticket office signs were entirely in Chinese and the staff spoke zero English. This led to the first of many tests of my blossoming knowledge of the Chinese language... which I passed with flying colors, securing tickets on the 9:00 express train for my mother and myself.
Suzhou is famous for the many gardens and pagodas scattered around the city, an equally impressive number of silk factories, and is the home of sandalwood carving. A tour-guide who picked us up (sketchy) as we exited the Suzhou train station ended up providing all day taxi service and location recommendations, as well as a chance for me to practice more Chinese, for about $10. The whirlwind tour of the town was great and the weather cleared up for most of the day making the trip even more enjoyable... one of the highlights I'll mention was a trip to the Suzhou's first silk factory where we given a tour of the entire production process before being deposited in a massive silk-product store (surprise, surprise.) Impressively, our only purchase was a Hugh Heffner-esque black silk robe for me with red dragons on it. We made it back to Shanghai safe and sound and called it an early night after another long day of walking.
Yesterday morning we finally found the mecca of tourist shopping, the Hongmei Road Pearl City Shopping Center. This eighth wonder of the world has small shops which carry every conceivable intellectual property and trademark infringement as well as small trinkets, a wide variety of silk products and an entire floor of real and imitation pearl jewelry. Mom stocked up on a few gifts but sadly I had to be at work in the afternoon and after a nice dinner with Justin and Nellie at the Uighur Restaurant (it's an ethnic minority from western China... look it up) we packed up and went to bed early again.
After helping my mom meet up with her Beijing traveling companions I endured a truly exhausting day of inventory reconciliation... it was so bad that I am truly looking forward to hours of sitting at my desk with budget work tomorrow.
The plan right now is to grab a flight late on Friday and meet my mom up in Beijing and hopefully catch a break with the weather that would allow us to see the Great Wall and me to check off one of the bigger items on my "China To Do" list.
Saturday ended up being a lazy errand day. The weather was dreary and we got a late start after I struggled to keep up with my mom's routine of morning exercises. We eventually started the day with a stroll down Xianxia Road (the main road in my district) and a trip to the Bank of China to exchange dollars for RMB. After we headed to Carrefour for what I thought would be a quick shopping trip... silly me.
Even with a light drizzle outside, Carrefour was a madhouse and we decided to grab a bite at Sushi Express, a great little restaurant where you sit down and pick individual plates of sushi off of a conveyer belt as they go past. Surviving lunch, we headed upstairs, grabbing lightbulbs to replace the ones that had been burned out since I moved in... no kidding, you know the bachelor lifestyle has gone bad when you won't even buy bulbs. Another floor up and I discovered with glee that the store had recently expanded (doubled) it's already sizeable wine selection... so in addition to the actual necessities (like bread, water, etc) I also picked up a nice mix of red wines recommended to me by the surprisingly helpful and not-snooty French manager of the store. We discovered, to our dismay, that the taxi line in the basement was backed up all the way into the store... ultimately, we waited 45 minutes to get a taxi for a 10 minute ride to my apartment... sweet. After unloading the groceries and cleaning my apartment to "mom" standards, we had a great meal at Micasa, the new Tapas restaurant on Hongmei Road.
Sunday was a long, long day... literally, we walked everywhere. Starting in Old Town in the morning, we browsed the Antique market and made our way to the Yu Gardens, which even in the rain were spectacular. After lunch, we walked up to the Bund and then all the way up the river to Nanjing road and made the impressive walk to People's Square. Grabbing dumplings-to-go from my favorite street vendor, my mom and I headed back to my apartment and enjoyed them while watching "When do we eat?" Mildly ironic.
Monday was slated for an all-day trip to Suzhou and ended up being an all-day adventure in transportation. Because of the rain, it was hard to get a taxi to the Shanghai Railroad Station in the morning and the cab we did finally hail down had a rookie (literally first week on the job) driver at the wheel. He got us nowhere fast, and we jumped ship when he finally got us to the metro station closest to my apartment. From there we rode line 3 directly to the station but missed the 8:20 train to Suzhou. The ticket office signs were entirely in Chinese and the staff spoke zero English. This led to the first of many tests of my blossoming knowledge of the Chinese language... which I passed with flying colors, securing tickets on the 9:00 express train for my mother and myself.
Suzhou is famous for the many gardens and pagodas scattered around the city, an equally impressive number of silk factories, and is the home of sandalwood carving. A tour-guide who picked us up (sketchy) as we exited the Suzhou train station ended up providing all day taxi service and location recommendations, as well as a chance for me to practice more Chinese, for about $10. The whirlwind tour of the town was great and the weather cleared up for most of the day making the trip even more enjoyable... one of the highlights I'll mention was a trip to the Suzhou's first silk factory where we given a tour of the entire production process before being deposited in a massive silk-product store (surprise, surprise.) Impressively, our only purchase was a Hugh Heffner-esque black silk robe for me with red dragons on it. We made it back to Shanghai safe and sound and called it an early night after another long day of walking.
Yesterday morning we finally found the mecca of tourist shopping, the Hongmei Road Pearl City Shopping Center. This eighth wonder of the world has small shops which carry every conceivable intellectual property and trademark infringement as well as small trinkets, a wide variety of silk products and an entire floor of real and imitation pearl jewelry. Mom stocked up on a few gifts but sadly I had to be at work in the afternoon and after a nice dinner with Justin and Nellie at the Uighur Restaurant (it's an ethnic minority from western China... look it up) we packed up and went to bed early again.
After helping my mom meet up with her Beijing traveling companions I endured a truly exhausting day of inventory reconciliation... it was so bad that I am truly looking forward to hours of sitting at my desk with budget work tomorrow.
The plan right now is to grab a flight late on Friday and meet my mom up in Beijing and hopefully catch a break with the weather that would allow us to see the Great Wall and me to check off one of the bigger items on my "China To Do" list.
posted by Mr. Frisky | 6:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home