Sunday Dec. 13 2008

Holy Cow, what a week. We have arrived in Shanghai and it all went smoothly.

The flight was 14 hours long leaving Friday Dec. 11th at 10:30am out of Chicago and it was uneventful, thank you very much. The movie selection was not great and I wondered why as there are so many good movies out on DVD at this time. I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth and part of Mamma Mia both frivolous but entertaining. Food was semi edible - good salad and nice smoked salmon appetizer. Main course, Mahi Mahi with rice and a yellow spicy sauce, not so tasty, accompanied by a side of sauteed peppers. The time past and I read a book and a half - The Choice by Nicholos Sparks and White Out - Ken Follet; And slept maybe 4 or 5 hours of the 14 hours. We touched down at 3:00pm Sat. Dec. 12th. Weather partly sunny and 50 degrees. Not bad!

Customs/passport control was a quick process and we headed over to the luggage carousel to pick up our 7 bags. Fortunately they all arrived and we headed out the door to meet Mr Gu (pronounced Goo) our driver. Mr. Gu had a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me and I was very touched. (Not to be confused with my normal mental state - slightly 'touched'!) Hee Hee.


The drive from the airport to the apartment was 40 minutes with minimal traffic. We were in the apartment and unpacking our bags by 4:30p and then headed down to the gym at 5:30 for a quick workout. It was necessary for me to fill out some paperwork to sign up for the gym membership and surprise surprise they wanted to take my picture for the ID. Oh was I a pretty picture. Travel weary, stringy hair, slightly oily face, no makeup, hair pulled back with band - I love that look! And now it has been captured forever on the gym membership id computer. The process itself was quick albeit ugly.

Our apartment is located on the 28th floor of the East tower and the gym is located on the 8th floor of the main/center tower. An elevator ride and a short walk, past the beauty farm gets us to the gym - someone should have warned me that they were going to take my picture as I would have made a quick stop at the beauty farm for a quick freshen-up!

We showered (finally!) and headed downstairs to one of the many restaurant located in Shanghai Centre complex. One of Tony's favorite - Element Fresh. We shared a hummus appetizer, Tony had a Greek salad and a carrot juice and I had tuna tartar and a warm spinach salad with caramelized apples.

Just a quick update for those who don't know: We had an unexpected trip to Washington, PA to go with TJ to see his neurologist and the fantastic super news is that TJ is going to be fine and with the exception of some headaches and some slight memory issues (minor) he IS fine and IS going to be fine. The headaches will subside and the memory with right itself in time. For those who don't know TJ took quite a blow in October at Lacrosse Fall Ball, a concussion, he was quite dazed. Although he seemed to have felt ok through Oct and Nov when he play some touch football over Thanksgiving he got "jostled" and at that point began having some headaches. The MRI is clean and he just has to let his brain rest and heal. TJ will be coming to visit us in Shanghai arriving Wednesday Dec. 17th!!! We are so excited!