Arrived in Hong Kong

Hello everyone,

I hope this message finds everyone well. We have safely arrived in Hong Kong.

As predicted, this last week in China has left us all pretty wiped out. Today was an incredibly long day, even though it was just a travel day. With our inventories last weekend, we pretty much worked 9 days in a row, and by the time yesterday afternoon rolled around, we were all exhausted. We left the office about 2, had some lunch and then went shopping. Remember that experience Charna blogged about the other day? The one she wanted me to have? Well, I got it - both yesterday afternoon and this morning. Yesterday afternoon was not so bad, but this morning was crazy...

This last week has not been such a good sleep week. Our hotel is literally right on a main road in Shanghai, that is very busy all hours of the day and night. You will recall we identified "horn" as another language, and the time of day or night horn is spoken is pretty irrelevant. In fact, Charna has become very good at understanding horn, and she often is called upon to translate. So anyway, I woke up this morning already tired, with no idea what I was in for. Charna thought we would be better off to go where she went previously, and so we did. I am not kidding, before we even paid the cabbie (after it took us in excess of 30 min to maybe go 4-5 miles) there were people flocking to us to take us around. One could consider them personal shoppers - and they escort you everywhere. We were primarily looking at handbags, and I am not kidding, we must have looked at hundreds of them. We would go into shops and be escorted into these back rooms, look around and either start to bargain or say "another store" I came away with one bag and Bruce 4 (for the other women in his life - his mom, sister, etc) When the guy came running up to us as we were getting out of the cab, I turned to Charna and asked her what she had gotten me into. We were only there for 2 hrs, but it was exhausting.

After that, we needed to get to the airport. Shanghai is one of the few places in the world that has one of those bullet trains - I think we got up to 450km per hr. We did it not only for the experience, but because we thought it was perhaps safer than being in a cab for 45 minutes. The only time it was a little scary was when another train passed us on the other track - Charna got a little pale. We made it safely to the airport where we pushed our way through the mob to get on the escalator to get up to the check in counter. We managed to get checked in and then had to go through about 3 levels of security and forms before we finally made it to our gate. To get to our plane, we had to get on a bus - and you guessed it, there were a ton of people on it. I about freaked out..thinking to myself, THE BUS IS FULL. Well then, the driver kept doing this stop/go thing - it was fantastic. We all managed to keep our balance before piling off the bus and then doing the whole mob scene thing again to get on the place.

Recall from the other day Bruce's conclusions about "sardines in a can". Bruce relived the nightmare again today, while Charna and I experienced it for the first time. The plane was packed - you could not move..anywhere. Not left, not right and certainly not forward. There was a screaming kid and about halfway into the TV's dropped down and Chinese opera came on - loudly. I might have lost it had that continued play throughout the rest of the trip. Charna was busily losing it behind me, as I had reclined my seat to try and get some sleep. Not one to usually fall victim to claustrophobia, the conditions inside the place had taken Charna there. Finally, we landed - and the whole mob scene again to pile off the plane. As we came off, Bruce comes running back on saying he left his camera - thankfully, he got it back. I am not sure if I blogged what happened the other night when Bruce got out of the cab and went "OMG my wallet" Everyone's heart stopped, I thought he had been pickpocketed. Well, he hadn't, thankfully, but sure scared the crap out of us. I left my purse (and more importantly my passport) in the hotel when we went shopping.

Going through customs and immigration in Hong Kong was much more user friendly. To get to our hotel, we hired a car. The hotel website said to go to the counter at 18A, so we did. The guy says, you can take a bus or get a car. I asked how much the car was, they said like $80. I said sold - there was no way we were getting in a bus with the masses. Dude behind the desk got a cart, picked up our bags and said follow me. We did. As we went outside, a car pulled up, driver got out and loaded the bags in the car. It was a black Mercedes - very nice ride. The driver was very safe, there was no one else in the car and we did not speak horn to anyone else, nor did anyone else speak horn to us. We got to the hotel safely and in one piece, and not once did we fear for our lives or be concerned that we were going to hit any one or anything. Quite refreshing. On top of that, the hotel was sold out of rooms at our rate, so we got free upgrades to a suite. What a treat - the hotel is very nice. The bellhop came out and got our bags, and brought them to the room, promptly.

After we arrived, we went to dinner at Sabatini, an Italian restaurant that had come recommended by an old colleague of my mom. It lived up to its recommendation. I forgot to add we had the lunch of champions in the Shanghai airport - Pringles, peanut butter and crackers, cheezits and M&M's. By the time we got to the hotel at almost 8, we were famished. And exhausted.

Suffice to say, dinner was very uneventful. The restaurant was quite crowded, and for good reason. However, the service was great and the food was even better. We decided a lunch of pringles and peanut butter and crackers was worth the dinner.

Tomorrow, we will go see the big Buddha at Lantau Island - we will have to take 2 Ferries to get there. We will dine atop Victoria Peak to see the view of the city at night, which will be amazing - it is really very nice here. We don't have plans for Sunday yet at this point, but plenty to keep us busy tomorrow. I got a message from our travel people today telling me there has been some ongoing problem with United's computer system, and they kept cancelling our flights because they thought it was a double booking - we are going back to Sing on Sunday night on the same flight we took to get to Singapore a few days ago. Fabulous. I am glad she told me so I don't go into a panic. You can't even imagine - if I feel the way I do tonight on Sunday, I might have gone into a meltdown if they told me we were not on that flight.

Although I am exhausted, I wanted to get this posted while it was still fresh. I found our time in China to be very exhausting - we worked all weekend at the processors and then were right in the hustle and bustle of the city where things work a little differently than in the US. As a team, we did feel this week would be exhausting, and it has. It was very nice to come into the situation in Hong Kong, where the pandemonium is not as rampant. If I had to describe China, it would be with the word pandemonium, all the time. I personally find it exhausting. There is a good chance today could have driven me to the point where my loved ones would have to commit me as a result of the nervous breakdown I was about to have. Travel today was very stressful.

Accordingly, I am going to go and try to get some sleep. English premier soccer is on, so I will rest and watch that. Hopefully, we have some pictures to post soon of Hong Kong - I am sorry I don't have the energy tonight to try and upload them.

I hope this finds everyone well, and staying warm. We are supposed to be in the 60's tomorrow. Grammie has told little Belle the countdown is on for her mom to come home. She got another special night last night of a walk and getting to chase her pink kong like a maniac. What a good girl..

~Nicole