Last Day in China

Wendy and Susie have arranged our airport transit, have given us papers with the time of our vans, the name and license plates of our drivers and have made sure all our flights are still scheduled as intended. And they have left us on our own. Groups with similar flight times (or actually on the same flight) are leaving throughout the day, in waves. Here's the 12:30 group:

My flight doesn't leave until 8:30 tonight so I have the whole day to kill.

First I tried to retrieve the laundry I left at a window near the hotel. Turns out that it won't be ready until tomorrow afternoon, long after I'm back in Portland. I hope they enjoy my American sized undies and jeans. I doubt they'll fit anyone in this country.

I tried to walk the neighborhood around the hotel, but gave up after walking almost an hour got me only deeper into the luxury-goods-stores part of town. I've already told you about my relationship to designer goods, real or fake.  I came back to the hotel and lay around in my room til I had to check out, and now have been in the lobby for about an hour watching a movie on the iPad. The lobby, like all the lobbies of all the hotels we've stayed in [except the one in the Yellow Mountains] is all decorated for Xmas

(apparently even the non-Christians among Shanghai's young people celebrate the secular gift-giving holiday), and full of people doing buisiness deals. Some Israelis discussing medical podcucts in Hebrew, a German guy talking about financing a deal in English with a Chinese man and his interpreter. Everybody else on their cell phones. 

I'm ready to come home, though perhaps not yet ready for the arduous journey to get there. I will have at least 2 hours in the Shanghai airport. And then 4 hours at LAX, but I'm hoping to see my cousin Rachel and her daughters Golda and Romi. I get into PDX at about 10:30 tomorrow night. Which will still be Wednesday, as it is now, because I'm recrossing the International Date Line, regaining the day I lost on the way here. 

I hope you've all enjoyed traveling with me through this blog. It was fun to share the adventure.