Well my leap of faith looks like it paid off. Vivian arrange
our flight to Shanghai then drove me to the Hong Kong border to meet Ms Look
(or Luke) and then dropped us off at the airport for a quick noodle dinner before
boarding our plane. By the time we had boarded I had explained that the two
names she had were inappropriate and consequently she is to be known as Lucy
from now on. After an uneventful flight except that I missed out on moon cake,
I didn’t want any of the other plane food but I would have put a moon cake away
for later. It was mid autumn festival yesterday which I had celebrated with
Vivian’s family and had given her a beautiful box of moon cakes but strangely
we didn’t eat any moon cakes all day, we did have some Durian fruit which was
delightful, but I was keen to try out moon cake. Anyway, a driver was waiting
for us at Shanghai airport and we were very efficiently taken to Lucy’s 2
bedroom 3 bathroom serviced apartment, very nice place. Lucy wanted a 7am start
so I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30am and accidently locked myself in my
ensuite, the door handle was a bit dodgy but I closed the door anyway and it
just didn’t open. Not sure if Lucy was awake and not really confident that she even
know’s what the meaning of ‘help I am locked in the bathroom’ was so I decided
to take a shower anyway and deal with the situation later. Well call me Uri
Geller because I think the sheer power of my mind got that door open – much to
my relief. Then we worked until 10am, Lucy was super keen hardly wanting to
take a break. I could already see her improving. Then she announced we were
going shopping – great I wanted to get out of the apartment. The same driver
came and got us again, then Lucy turns around and announces she has to go to the
hospital for her eye – strange, I hadn’t noticed anything wrong and I had just
spent 3 intense hours with her! Turns out to be the Beauty Hospital. So the
driver and I went and found some breakfast, then as we were near the Train
Station I walked around there a bit looking to buy a new top to replace the one
I had on. I am quite proud of my track record of not getting food all over
myself in China as a lot of westerners seem to, I put it down to me embracing
the teenie tiny chairs and tables which encourage hunching over your food bowl
and my near professional chopstick handling. The soup I got for breakfast was
served on normal sized furniture and the vegetables were cut so all the edges
had a slope and when it slipped off the chopstick back into the soup my inadequacies
was stained down my T-shirt. What a first day at my new job! Locked in the
bathroom then looking like a klutz! It put me off breakfast so I didn’t eat
much, even after I had done battle with the odd shaped carrots. It turned out
to be fortuitous as when Lucy had finished at the Beautician we all went out to
lunch and again it was a huge bowl of noodle soup. I am starting to wonder if
Vivian had passed on my failure at eating Dim Sum. Once back at the apartment
Lucy declared it sleep time, great, love the noon nap. About 4pm she announced
she was going out and left me the only keys to the apartment, so I took off for
a walk to find the nearest Subway entrance and got back about 6pm, grabbed a
card from the restaurant across the street so I have my chinese address and
flicked though 35 channels of Chinese TV to find one station broadcasting in
English. At 7.30 Vivian rang to say that Lucy had rung her to ring me to see if
I wanted Lucy to bring home take away or if I wanted to go out by myself. Not really hungry so I opted for take away – I
always feel like these are trick questions as the Chinese have a habit of not
speaking directly and I don’t always pick up on the direction that is being
given, I have no idea which was the right choice.
