Shanghai day one…it begins!

Michelle and her Mum have headed out into the retail madness of Nanjing road in the hopes of nabbing some bargains while I do the midday Penny sleep shift. It’s a nice break and I am happy to sit in the air-conditioned comfort and write up some entries for the blog. Yesterday was hell (as already mentioned) and just dragged and dragged as only a long haul flight can. Everything went well and there weren’t any real problems… it just sucked basically. Penny was great on the planes and in the taxis and has been a little angel the whole time. Not one tantrum or crack-up the whole time. Which is pretty amazing as us adults had some anxious moments due to lack of sleep.

OK so yesterday we started at the Kingsford Smith Hotel in Brisbane and headed out to our domestic connection to Sydney departing at 5.55 am. The alarm was set for 3:45 and the taxi booked for 4:30. All went well and we arrived at the domestic terminal with about an hour before departure. However we had to stand in a queue back almost to the entry doors of people checking luggage through to international flights. So time passed and we edged closer and closer to the front until there was just one more person in between us and the desk. That was when they called our flight to Sydney and asked all people yet to check in to move to a different counter. There was a mad rush and basically a QANTAS guy came and ushered from the front of the queue we had stood in for the better part of an hour and lead us to the back of a line of people that had just arrived a couple of minutes before…needless to say there was much raving and gnashing of teeth. We ended up being among the last few to board the plane. The flight itself was uneventful…thankfully and Penny was pretty nonplussed about the whole thing.

The flight to China however was just long, long, long, and boring. It was an eleven-hour flight straight from Sydney to Shanghai and with a 2 year old to entertain it was a slow moving hell. Penny, to her credit did really well and managed a little sleep which in turn loosened the screws on us and allowed a little down time. Anyway enough about the boring god-awful flight that really wasn’t that bad already. We went out into the streets this morning and headed down Nanjing Road to the Bund so that we could gawk with the rest of the tourists at the architectural obscenities of Pudong. It is a strange sight made all the more strange by having the austere British formality of the Bund at your back. Sort of like looking out of the window of a Rolls at some glammed up kids parading down the other side of the street. It is always worth a look.

The Chinese are ga-ga over Penny. Even in Shanghai they want their photos taken with her. We had lunch at a restaurant just off Nanjing road and the staff all had to get their mobile phones and cameras out to take Penny’s picture. She, as you can imagine, was unimpressed but put up with it fairly well. There were a few lip trembles but no tears. By the end of the meal she was running around and laughing at the waitress. Kids eh?

By the way, the food was great…sticky Shanghai short ribs, braised da baicai (like wombok, or white cabbage), double cooked eggplant and some omelette and tomato for Penny. Magic…ah its good to be back in China!

The view from our hotel overlooking Nanjing Rd East

A shot of the girls from the Bund across to Pudong