Well we arrived after a 12 hour flight! We all managed to sleep pretty good on the plane so to arrive at 7.30am meant we could still enjoy the rest of the day without feeling too tired. It was raining when we arrived but cleared pretty early on in the day so we were able to walk around and not get wet! Our tour guide picked us up from the airport and it took about 3/4 of an hour to get to the Sofitel Hotel. Our rooms are fabulous and we were even allowed to have breakfast….which we ate all courses to make it our lunch as well. The rest of the day we got on the explorer bus and saw as much as we could. We even got off twice and had some closer looks at the local life. The most exciting was the old China town part where we had shop keepers trying to convince us that we needed to buy their goods. Robin brought a 32gig memory usb for approx $22NZ. We took heaps of photos and are seeing heaps of wonderful things. The scariest are the bikes and people on the roads. They are everywhere..and there are soooo many bikes. Their seems to be no road rules. People just pull out in front of each other…horns tooting all the time…and amazingly no one gets hurt. Little children are also on the bikes with their parents and no one wears helmets.
We had tea at a restaurant beside the Hotel and experienced locan Chinese food. Mine consisted of lots of cabbage. Judy and Len had seafood noodles and they loved it. They had to pull the shells off all their seafood to eat it…even the cockles. I wondered if they would be able to sleep all night or have upset tummies…they were fine. Tonight we had sweet and spicey chicken and it was HOT!!! Robin had a curry and had trouble stopping his nose from running all trough the meal!…but it was all yummy. We have had McFlurries from McDonald’s a couple of times…a taste from home 🙂
Today we met the tour guide at 8am and were taken to the train station. We had to catch the train to Suzh-ou on our own and get off at the right station! I was very concerned that we wouldn’t know what station was the correct one…but it all worked out. The train was a neat experience. it travelled at high speeds..even getting up to 305Kmph! I will load some photos as it was a fabulous day and we saw heaps of neat things…including an old garden, a silk factory and a boat ride.
There is no Vodafone supplier here in Shanghai so Judy and I can’t use our iphones!! except for games 🙂 We can get our gmail but can’t send any emails! We have free wi-fi at the Hotel, only at reception, but none of us can connect to Facebook! So tonight we are all sitting at reception with our laptops!!!
Tomorrow we are amusing ourselves for the day but going to an acrobatic show in the evening. The next morning we leave for the airport at 8am. I hope my legs can cope with flying again…as I now have no ankles and my feet look really weird! I obviously have fluid retention! never had it before…oh except when I was pregnant!
I will load some photos now as they may take awhile to upload. Miss you all at home. Pray for C5 as the Doctor needs to do more tests on her heart as it looked like she may have a hole in her heart..and may need an operation! I hope all the Mummies/Nanas at home will look after her for me….please
No.. I won’t load any photos…the internet won’t allow us to….not even gmail. Maybe when we get to London. So I will catch up with the photos then, and probably the blog as well as we are out tomorrow night. Take care xoxo