Huangjiazhai

We landed in Shanghai Pudong International Airport on time and were greeted already by our first culture clash. There was a massive gaggle of people squeezing their way into a queue for the Health Quarantine check. Davy asked us where the end of the line was so that we could join the queue in an orderly manner - we had to explain that in China you just form queues mob-style and get your elbows out!

After making it through health quarantine, self-service fingerprint collection, immigration, baggage claim, and customs, we were quickly spotted by Poppy’s colleague Boris’ PhD student Yuning and headed together into town for the Parkyard Hotel. In the lobby, there were displays of cute little stuffed pigs in baskets for CNY and I was showing them to Meg. A few minutes later, as we completed the check-in process, the receptionist came back with two little guys for Meg and Davy! Hence we welcome PiggyWiggy and PiggyWiggy into our World Tour team!

In the rooms, Davy and Mommy were very happy to find fancy toilets with heated seats! Poppy and Meg were more amused by trying - albeit unsuccessfully - to test out the automated bidet features. The bedside units also featured emergency torches and in the closet were provided two gas masks for our safety in the event of a major fire calamity.

One thing that we learned on this near-freezing cold evening was that Google Maps does not work well in China - even a major business centre like Shanghai. What we were seeking this particular evening, was a beef noodle soup restaurant. First we started with Poppy's GPS and after several minutes of not feeling like we were heading in the right direction, we tried Mommy's GPS which, still based on Google Maps, led us along a different route. Still not having any luck, we finally decided to head back to the hotel before anyone expired of frostbite.

Just outside the hotel, we found a convenience store, which had products with enough nutritional value to tide us over to the next morning. However, tragedy then struck when we arrived at the check-out - only Union Pay credit cards were accepted! In other words, not most foreign credit cards! The gentleman kindly directed us to the nearest bank machine in the shopping complex nearby. We set forth hesitantly in the direction suggested... only to find that the restaurant, plus many others, were right there - not 100m from the hotel where we had started!

We ended up grabbing some sausage sticks for the kids and took it easy on Poppy, opting for Papa John's pizza on our first night out in China.Read more