A quick update. Our flight from Moscow took off at 3PM, only 4 hours 40 minutes late without so much as a “we’re sorry” until we landed at 3:15 AM. Other than that the flight was very nice, the food was plentiful and good and the indoor of the plane was on great need of updating. The video entertainment was a three pound tablet with a smaller screen than my tablet and no place to rest it in a viable position. It went directly into the storage pocket only to be sent at the end of the flight. Reading and sleeping torrent with eating condoned the time quite well.
We were dropped at the hotel by city guide Andy at 5 AM or so and found our way to our room where we slept until 9:30 awakening in time to rush to the dining room and grab some breakfast before they cleared the buffet away. After meeting our Tour Leader, Michael, (they all seem to have Americanized names for leading American groups) we set out to walk to Nanking (or maybe Nanjing) road which is very long long pedestrian shopping street. We spent our afternoon walking and window shopping. We wondered off onto a side Street where we found a local restaurant where we ordered too much for lunch. I decided not to have one of the bullfrog dishes. May after some time here that may not put me of my feed, but I’m not there yet.
We dined at the hotel restaurant restaurant, once we found it. A trip to the 2nd floor brought us to the Leningrad Bar. I decided me must have been pushed through a time warp as the main offering was vodka and the snacks were Russian dishes, also the primary section of the menu as written in Cyrillic!
This morning, Saturday I think, we met or new group and spent the day touring. The highlight was the Shanghai Museum where the 2 hours of alloted time was enough for one of the 4 floors and a run through of the others the special exhibit of French Impressionists was not available to us and the lines for those with tickets were hours long. Dinner with the group in an hour. Now I must truck on down to the lobby to use the wifi to get this out.