Wow. I think that Skype is probably one of the top five most amazing things that I have experienced in my life. To be 7000 miles away and to be able to see each other and talk like that, for free, is phenomenal. Don’t ask what the other four things are. I’m not sure.
So of course Duncan was up at the crack of dawn – must have been about six AM. But he slept well so I won’t complain much. We got up and decided to go to the pool first so that’s what we did and swam for about half an hour. Then we came back and went to eat. They have a nice breakfast there (I think the dinner/appetizers are nice but we’ve missed it twice and just had the desserts). The breakfast includes both traditional eggs/bacon/hash browns plus a whole lot of pastries and also Chinese things many of which I have no clue what they are. Had traditional today but I plan to try some of the other stuff tomorrow. In the evening they have some sort of dinner food and then lots of pastries again. Duncan got the very fudgy brownie. He’s being pretty good about GF. They also have a cappuccino machine (love it!) and pop in a fridge, including Schweppes Seltzer Water (love it too!). At night they offer beer, wine, and liquor too for free. Also have small cookies, etc. Its on the 30th/top floor and is only available to those of us on the executive floors. It was a great find vs. the other hotel where I would have had a kitchen to cook by myself. There’s only a few people (ok, girls) who work up there and they seem to get to know everyone. When we have been up there there have not been very many people ever, and lots of room.
As soon as he was up the boy Duncan started in on the casual comment I made yesterday that I saw a TRU bag yesterday. Where is it? When can we go? Blah blah blah. SO we started down our road Hangfeng south thinking we’d see what we see and head towards TRU which is at the big mall in Pudong right near the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. It was hot but we saw a lot of neat things. We headed East on Nanjing Rd. (of course all the shopping on that road, for which it is well known, is to the West, but TRU TRU TRU). So we got to Peoples Square, which is a big park that has a lot of things to see and do and we went down to the Metro and took it over to the stop by TRU. We will return to People’s Square. One thing there was several long areas where things were posted with writing in Chinese and photos – maybe missing people listings – and a lot of people milling around. We agreed we’ll have to investigate that.
Off the Metro (cost: 6 RMB or $1 for both of us) we came up right near the big tower and lots of other toursity things. The Metro and that area were very crowded (because it was a Saturday, I suppose). We walked around the above-road-so-you-don’t-have-to-dodge-scooters-and-taxis walkway and looked at things and then walked over to the “Super Brand Mall” which is like seven floors with no maps that we could find so we just walked around a bit and then found the TRU.
TRU was harrowing and interesting. Harrowing because there were a lot of weapons and Duncan wanted them all or at least one and I at the beginning and consistently said NO WEAPONS and he was not very happy there. (I will stand on that as I think any weapon thing is a bad way to start with K and F) Lots of complaining which I did my best to ignore and looked around to see what was there. I thought to get just a couple of things for the kids to play in case we just stay here some – 2 cars, a small ball with globe (will be useful for geography and plane ride), a couple of tennis balls (balls for pool, etc.), the playdo, and the colored pencils. And a swim mask for DT and a blow up ring for Finn – in case we need it. Got all stuff not a lot of $$. Duncan and I are planning to get (little) things for the kids and we looked at some stuff for that too. He finally got over the weapons mostly but you know he had to buy something. He got that BB hoop and ball which really might be a good boy bonding thing which was what he was thinking and also a little Lego guy. He was also dying for teeny BB sized magnetic balls (like 216 of them) in a really pretty cool thing at Brookstone in Chicago but they would’ve been eaten by Mags and Aila so I shut that down too so then he got that R/C spider.
So then we walked out and down to the peddler infested, smelly riverside at the Huangpu river, where the pu smell definitely hangs, esp when it’s 85 degrees and 847% humidity. Going up the steps to the boardwalk was the first, a guy with Rolexes who went right to Duncan. Offering a Rolex for 150 RMB. Duncan can, does, and loves to bargain. He offered like twenty. The guy laughed him off. Then the guy came to 100. Then there was a flurry: 50…..80……60….70….DEAL! Duncan was beaming with pride as the peddler strapped the Rolex on his arm and lovingly custom-adjusted it to his skinny arm. Its’ a women’s model but fits him fine. A few seconds later I told him that real ones cost $4000 (a guess which we later confirmed on Google) and he was then super-happy. Quite fun.
Within three minutes the kite guy swooped in. Offered a kite for 10 Duncan offered him 1 and he laughed and we walked away. Well then the guy was walking in front of us flying a kite (they are paper but have a tail and like six or four sections). And then he stopped and offered him three for 20. Well then the Mont-Blanc fountain pen guy is there offering pen, opening it up, saying how nice it is, blah blah blah and Duncan is ignoring him and says no – how about four for 20, no five. The guy agrees, then Duncan pays him the 20. Then Duncan thinks about how many siblings he has and says no, how about six. And the guy, like he is done with him, but his buddy Mont-Blanc says, yeah, go ahead, and I chime in about how many siblings he has, and the guy coughs up another kite. In his mind now it’s Duncan 2, Peddlers 0. A good day. For him…Later another person is offering him a laser pointer for 100 outside the hotel and he offers 5. She laughs, he walks away. Go Duncan.
Then we came back to the hotel to drop our booty and swim.
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