Shanghai (3/4-5): The Second Half

I should probably finish up the Shanghai trip blog before I forget what happened while I was there.

Truth be told, the rest of the trip was sort of a blur.  Not because it went by quickly, but because I was in such a mental haze for the next two days. 

After the last blog was written, I kept working at the City Diner for another hour or two and then headed back to Tam's apartment to crash.  I fell asleep around 10:30.  At 2:30 I got a call from Tam that Faye was bringing someoe over to look at the apartment.  Well, I figured it was as good a time as any to get up and get going, even though I only had four hours of sleep.

I quickly got dressed and cleaned up and headed out of the house.  I first caught a cab to a nearby Sauna place to wash up.  I could have used Tam's shower, but since people were coming over, I didn't really feel like getting caught hafl-way through sudsing up my private parts, and decided to go treat myself to some comfort.

It was a typical sauna place.  I washed up and got a foot massage and ear cleaning.  They kept trying to offer the "extra services" but I declined.  They seemed surprised, which gave me the impression that this particular sauna was directed towards a specific type of clientele.

After leaving (all nice and clean) I went to the Coffee Bean to check email and do some work.  Needless to say I had decided to stay one more day in Shanghai.

If anyone put a squinty rat picture for CNY up on display in the U.S. people would be screaming racial profiling from the rafters .. but here in China it's not such a big deal.

After working for a few hours I went to the fake market on Nanjing Lu and bought a big suitcase.  Then I went to Sherry's apartment and loadd it up with all of my stuff with the exception of my bicycle and computer. 

I had decided I was going to come back at the end of April to pick up the computer and ship the bicycle, so I didn't have to deal with them at this point.  But there sure was a lot of other stuff I was carting back. 

I hung out with Sherry and her friend for a bit watching some of the "24" DVDs I had loaned her, and then made my way back to Tam's, where I dropped off the big suitcase and hung out with his roommate for a bit.  Nice guy.  We watched a bit of Southpark before he headed to bed and I headed out to City Diner for another night of work.

What are "Ameircan Portions"?  Is that an insult?  lol.

And work I did.  I pretty much spent most of the night there until the morning.  From about 3:00 to 7:00 the internet went out, but I still had plenty of non-online work to do so it didn't keep me from being productive.

But by the time 8:00 rolled around I was pretty wiped.  Only 4 hours of sleep the night before wasn't helping either.

After leaving City Diner I went to the Jing An Airline Ticket terminal thingee (don't know what to call it) but they weren't open yet.  So I went for a walk around Jing An Park, taking pictures of the old folks doing taiji and qi gong.  Some of them were pretty good too.

At 9:30 I went back and bought a plane ticket.  I lucked out because the tickets to Shenzhen were 1300 RMB.  But I found a ticket to Hong Kong for the same price!  1300 RMB!  (That's including teh 200 RMB airport/flight tax).  Direct to Hong Kong for the same price as Shenzhen.  Not too bad.

I headed back to Tam's place and spent about an hour packing everything up.  I knew I would be overweight with the luggage, but I was willing to swallow that pill.  At around 11:00 I went to take a nap, asking both Lisa and Mark Wu to call me at 2:00 to make sure I was up for my flight. 

Fortunately only having 7 hours of sleep over the course of 3 days didn't prohibit me from getting up in time to get my things together and catch a cab to the airport.  Of course, I slept the whole ride there.

At the airport I checked in (Yup, my luggage was overweight), grabbed a quick bite to tie me over, and then went to my Shanghai airlines plane.

I have to mention that there was a really rude flight attendant on this flight.  Now, my father having been a flight attendant for over 35 years, I am very cognizant of the plight of these often-unthanked stewards of the sky.  I usually make it my mission to be as polite and trouble-free a passenger as possible.

However, for some reason I got the angriest and most unruly flight attendant I've ever come across.  I won't give the specifics, but let's just say that I was about a hair's width from lodging a formal complaint with the airline.  And i never file complaints about stuff like that.

I'm hiding her face to be nice, but she really was a horrible flight attendant...

Fortunately I spent most of the flight sleeping and didn't wake up until we arrived in Hong Kong.  While at the airport I went up to the 3 Mobile store and applied for a new SIM card.  So now I was finally phone-ified back in Hong Kong.  Nice to be reach-able again.

A quick taxi ride home and I was back in my pad.  But of course, my schedule was pretty much screwed at this point and I would spend much of the next week trying to get my sleeping back on a normal schedule.

The rest of the photos are in my gallery.  Enjoy!