A bit of a slow start, despite the lot of us being up quite early. Christiaan was still sick, so he stayed home from school, with the Ayi (a housekeeper of sorts), Christy. Fransis had to work, so Elizabeth had their driver, Jay, drive us to the French Concession in downtown Shanghai.
The Concession was a promenade of shops, and a small mall. The girls were keen on doing some shopping so we headed to the mall first. Prices were okay, but certainly not anything too outstanding. After the mall we walked down the pedestrian street and in to a few other shops while we looked for somewhere to have lunch.
Our attempts at lunch in the Concession failed us, so we went to one of Elizabeth’s favourite places in Shanghai – Element Fresh. Jay picked us up where he’d dropped us off, and drove through the city to the restaurant. Element Fresh is a modern restaurant with a wide selection of dishes to choose from. Gabriella and I had the same thing, Middle Eastern Chicken, and everyone else tried something different – but everyone seemed quite happy with their selection. Prices on food were also pretty decent, but not pennies a meal or anything to that effect.
Shopping seemed to be on the agenda, so we headed to a small street where every other store seemed to be a shoe store. Too many shoe stores. The girls were keen on going into nearly every store (or near enough to it), so getting down the street and back up the other side was a challenge. We overcame the challenge, despite being swarmed by people on the street intent on luring us to a location where we could see many many watches, sunglasses, purses, etc. “Pu Yao”, meaning “I don’t want it”, quickly became part of our Mandarin vocabulary.
We stopped at the grocery market on the way home, and wandered through the cd and dvd section in the market. Lots of cds and dvds at dirt cheap prices. Quality seems quite good too, although I have to question the legitimacy of some of the products.
I’m not too inclined on stocking up on anything, since I have no dvd or cd player, and don’t want to carry around said purchases for the rest of my travels.
Had a lovely dinner cooked by Fransis’ mom and Christy. Victoria and I started watching “Gone, Baby, Gone”, and were later joined by Gabriella. Victoria had seen it already, but was keen to watch it again. She fell asleep about half an hour in, but Gabriella outlasted her (although she went to bed under the impression the movie was over – when there was still about half an hour to go). Not as good as the book by a long shot, but not too bad.