1 - WEDNESDAY M & D arrive and THURSDAY in Shanghai

Hey Everyone.

Okay, so this weekend has been absolutely crazy but heaps and heaps of fun. So I've got a heap to write about. To make sure you don't get RSD from reading my blog I've split it up by day. So you can read at your leisure! :)

So here goes! .... ... ...

Mum and Dad arrived on Wednesday last week. It was absolutely fantastic to see them again! :) And I think they enjoyed their 'real' China driving experience with their taxi driver ripping them off for the fare in and driving like a total maniac to get them there!
Once in the college, we discovered that 'unfortunately' they weren't going to have a room for the entire duration of their stay. (even though I had specifically gone to the lady at the front desk WEEKS prior and booked it.) So Tuesday -Friday night Mum and Dad are going to have to find another hotel or bunk on my floor! lol... but once again, it's all part of the China experience!

THURSDAY - We were up at 5:45am to have showers, breakfast and be at the train station (huo che zhan) on the other side of town to depart at 7:40am. The train ride was great! we were in 1st class and sat opposite a lovely pair of Chinese ladies who were heading up to Shanghai for a girl's weekend. We attempted to have conversations about different things in Chinese, but as you can guess with my not so large array of vocab it was quite jilted... it kind of reminded me of a game of pictionary. I think I improved my drawing skills as well as my spoken! ... even Dad attempted to draw a picture of a slicer to try and explain the family business!
Oh, we've swapped details too, cause her daughter is my age and she's studying English, and is hoping to come to Australia at some point.
Anyhow, it was a great way to pass the time and I think they enjoyed themselves. I know the rest of the train did, the whole carriage was looking over their newspapers and books to see what we were doing, finding it hilarious that this crazy waiguoren (Foreigner) sitting with her parents was trying to speak Chinese! Even people from the other isles were putting in their 2 cents worth trying to help translate what we were saying!

So Shanghai itself is very very big! ... and it's true... the whole city is literally constantly under construction! everywhere you looked something new was being put up, or being renovated! it was amazing! ... we had so much trouble trying to find our hotel because the entire thing was surrounded by roadworks and construction! ... I can't even remember how many times we circled the block on Thursday and Friday trying to find our hotel!

Thursday arvo after we dropped off our bags at the hotel, we went straight to the Hotelex Food Equipment Expo, though we were quite grateful we made it in the first place and our taxi driver decided that it was too difficult to get into the inside lane to do a u-turn. So instead went to the far outside lane and swung out in front of 5 lanes of traffic to turn! ... quite the experience... I think Dad left finger imprints in the sides of the chair!
Hotelex itself was pretty interesting, we found some products we liked and we're heading back up to Shanghai tomorrow to check one of them out. But I have to say the majority of it was just the same things: cutlery, plates and duplications of everything else.

Thursday night I yanked Mum and Dad back out again and we headed to the Bund (No rest for the travel crazy!) ... for those of you who don't know, the Bund is the famous pictures of the needle like shaped tower you see in all of the postcards from Shanghai. It was BEAUTIFUL! It truly is old meets new. You look to your left and see huge skyscrapers with the side of the building lit up (a TV screen on the side of the skyscraper!) Look to your right and you see heritage listed architectural brilliant buildlings! You can check out the pictures on the link! We also had dinner in this little tiny 'out-of-the-way' kinda store in a back street. They were very suprised to see westerners off the beaten track and every person in the place stared at us as we attempted to eat slippery noodles with chopsticks... put it this way... they killed themselves laughing! but the girls were beatuiful and even let me take a photo with them! (The girls in yellow - see the photos) :)

But anyway the first day of our long weekend was crazy busy, but heaps of fun. I'll let you have a break from my HUGE amount of typing and I'll post about Friday later tonight. I'm going to head out with the guys and play tennis while Mum and Dad have a nap! :)

Zai Jian! xx