G & J away from home

Saturday, 13 June

Arrived safely, and in good time too, which did make up a little for the delay in leaving Heathrow.

As everybody stood up to disembark the plane the young woman in the seat in front of me said, "I hope I didn't make you too uncomfortable reclining my seat."  It's actually quite hard to respond to that - 'yes, you did make me uncomfortable' (true) versus 'oh, no, that's quite all right' (polite fib). I wish they would make seats not recline in aircraft.  I'm sure the gain in sleeping comfort is so minimal compared to the discomfort it inflicts on others.

We were met by the taxi rep and drove through Shanghai to the hotel - through the smog of Shanghai is probably a better description.  I took a few photos as we went along but there were certainly never going to be any distance views!

I was quite surprised that the signs were in Chinese (characters) and English (characters and language).

Signs and traffic

We saw a few interesting looking buildings but if they were any distance away they were pretty difficult to make out.  Mostly what we saw were apartment blocks - hundreds and and hundreds of them - and an Ikea shop.  Also this bridge which we swung around to drive over a few minutes later:

Bridge (we went over it a few minutes later)

I think this sign (finally one without English subtitles) is showing the congested areas up ahead (in orange).  I should have asked the driver what they meant.

More signs (showing congestion?)

But my favourite bit of the drive was seeing the apartment buildings 'decorated' all over their sides with washing being hung out to dry.  It gave them a very festive look!

Buildings decorated by washing

The hotel is very flash and I dashed about taking photos as soon as we arrived (before we messed the place up).

Hotel room

The bathroom is huge and with a large separate shower, which is nice.  I think we can manage to live here for three nights without too much difficulty.

Bathroom

If I didn't think I would fall asleep in it and drown I would be in there having a bath right now!

Here's the view from the window.  Both Gary and I commented that we didn't overlook the 'beach' as we did in Vienna.

View from the room window

And finally, for my reading friends, here's what makes the room perfect, a reading chair alongside the window.  That's where I'll be as soon as I finish this blog update.

Ahh, the reading chair!

(Gary's now having an afternoon snooze but I'm trying to stay awake to wake him up for tea otherwise it'll be 2am or something when we finally wake up and it'll be a little more difficult to find something to eat then.)
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