Beep! 3:45 A.M. is too early. But thank goodness we were already packed and clothes picked out the day before. 7 people to get through the single bathroom. Throw the toothbrushes in the suitcase and our ride awaits us outside. Not much traffic out this early. Only when we get close to the airport does the road get busy. When you enter the terminal they group you in 7-10 people swab your hands and bags then run it through a machine before letting you further into the airport.
I don’t think they allow any liquid on their airlines(not counting drinks bought enough inside the airport). I had a 1oz in my purse and ended up thinking I’d better put it in check-in. No carry-on travel sizes here.
Once we got to our gate my mother-in-law broke out the baozas they bought the night before. We had to take a shuttle bus to the plane on the taramac. The first bus left it was dry. When we got on the bus we stood there for 20 minutes due to a storm. Then we had to run for the plane once it arrived at our plane. They were passing out tissues for people to dry off with. Since it is only supposed to be a 2 hour plane ride they don’t carry a lot of blankets. Those ran out.
Then due to the storm, it was thunder and lightening, we sat there for 3 hours before we took off. They brought breakfast on and had a movie play. Being more of a commuter plane they had a screen for every 5 rows. Breakfast was corn and rise gruel, chicken hotdog with whole pieces of corn in it(very sweet), a tea egg, melon fruit, a sweet bread and yogurt. They went through a few times with drinks. I saw olive juice, so I tried it. Ick, not good, but I’ve had worse. I mixed a bit of the kids orange juice and sprite. It didn’t mask the flavor much.
We had a car scheduled to pick us up in Shanghai. So they called and said they saw the delay and will be there to pick us up. The plane ride went without delay. A bit of sleeping. Instead of getting to Shanghai at 9 A.M., we got ther at noon! As soon as we landed the ride called. We get luggage, go the bathroom and try to find the pick-up location. That is where all heck broke lose. He said exit 7. There are only 4 exits in the terminal. We go out and see the 7-12 in the parking garage across the street, but to get there we must exit through the 2nd floor of the terminal. Back inside we must go, need to be reswiped, then put all our luggage through the security scanner to get back in and up the escalator and out to the parking lot. There must have been some type of music or production crew coming in, lots of long hair foreign roadies carting gear. There are several fancy sports cars that were used by Asians with tattoos. Wensen was happy to see a McLaren and Ferrari.
We find our driver, they always include license plate numbers. But he doesn’t want to drive us now. My father-in-law jumps in his front seat and they have a screaming match, he refuses to drive us. Now this is already pre-paid for on-line. After and hour we call another car and take the guys pics and pics of his vehicle to report to the company later. Such drama!
Finally we get to our hotel and checked in and relax it’s after 2 P.M. We have food delivered and the old people take naps, I take the kids to the pool. An indoor infinity pool on the 21st floor. It’s quite warm, but the hot tub is very hot, my legs are tingling hot. After that the pool felt a reasonable cool. I can’t believe they let kids go into the hot tubs. Under age 2!
We finally go out about 7 to get dinner, we walk around, the few places Tao wanted to try didn’t have enough seating. So we walked around down by the water. Saw the boats lit up like a light parade, the 200 plus people riding the ferry over to the other side. The Pearl and other tall buildings all lit up.
We end up going back to the hotel and get food delivered. Tao ordered from one he wanted to eat at. A wonton shop. He was happy, the bowl had several different flavor wontons, you don’t know which you’ll get. Good Happy Father’s Day. Because it was way to early this morning to remember the cards I left in Beijing. Uggh.
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