Wedding Dress Mission Completed

Gigi, Tatiana, and Steve showing off their favorite place for Texas BBQ
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Have you ever gone into a sauna?  The sweat just starts to pour off your face as soon as your feet touch the floor inside and the steam swirls around your body.  Well, that's what the top bunk of our train from Beijing to Shanghai felt like as I tried to find a way to get air but there was no use.  I even climbed down in the middle of the night hoping the hallway would help, but it didn't.  Stupid temperature controls in Chinese.   However, Bill, my oblivious companion, slept through the whole thing.  And did I forget to mention the old man on the bottom bunk who hacked away every ten minutes and then around midnight when I finally feel asleep, the beeping starts as he forgot to set his alarm and there hi goes.  The sauna continues...  Of course, we had both top bunks this time, so as when we arrived the two in the bottom bunks were already all sprawled out and not giving any room to get ourselves situated.  I'd need been happier to get off a train, well, expect for the general compartment we rat packed in India.

Tatiana lassoed Bill and dragged him to the dinner table
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We arrive to our fancy hotel around 8:00 am, and no room is yet available, so no shower, and now we must go get some food.  Bill tries to appease me with some coffee bean and it works for a bit until I get crappy for not having a shower. and we finally agree to head the three subway stops to the only internet place that doesn't cost $1 every 10 minutes.  We get some snacks at cafe 85 which I call cafe 87, 83, and even 84 until Bill finally made me get it right.  But it's a cheap little pastry shop that has all kinds of fresh breads, sweets, and bobo drinks.  We take it with us to the internet, where I email Gigi, the one helping me get my wedding dress, as we haven't checked into the hotel yet so we didn't have a phone and told her around 2 o'clock after we could check in.  Luckily, we emailed her because she had to pick us up at 1 as she replied in her email.  So we grabbed some lunch and hoped our room would be ready by 12.  Luckily, it was...off to the dress shop we go....

And so, behind the green cloth I went while Gigi made sure Bill couldn't see anything. She came over and inspected the dress as it was hard for me to really see the dress with the tiny sized mirror this shop had.

Then she turned her skills on her sister Aberdine
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If you look at the last Shanghai blog, you can see pictures of how tiny this shop really is. It's really a corner stall where they hold up a green cloth for you to try on the dresses.  And so, behind the green cloth I went while Gigi made sure Bill couldn't see anything.  She came over and inspected the dress as it was hard for me to really see the dress with the tiny sized mirror this shop had.  Though I knew the dress wasn't quite complete, but I was a bit disappointed as it just didn't have that shiny new dress feel.  I had to keep remembering, they were still making changing.  Though the dress had a long train, so I had to step out of the shop so they could get a better look.  Gigi made sure Bill left and I could see him walking away, but he was good, and never turned back.  Though I had plenty of people stop and take a look, I'm still not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The Shanghai Trade Center the 2nd tallest building in the world
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We finished quicker than Gigi thought, so she asked if I wanted anything else.  I told her my idea about Bill getting a matching vest and bow tie, and she thought it was a great idea.  So I rushed to find Bill and before he knew it, they were measuring him, and he was paying for his new vest.   Gigi brought us back to the hotel and had invited us to Hangzou the next day.  She had a business meeting, and said we could go down with her and use her driver while she was at the meeting.  So see the next blog for more details on our day there....

The pearl of the orient
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Bill took me down to Xandi, an area of town that reminded me of a downtown area in a quaint town in the USA. It had expensive shops with expensive restaurants including Lawry's which we almost went to as prime rib sounded great, but at the price, we settled for the pub.  We got beer and I tried wiener schnitzel which I always thought was some type of hot dog, boy was I wrong.

This day we went to Hangzou, and we got lucky that night because Gigi took us out with her family to Bubba Texas BBQ for some good old American food.  It was a real treat as we were in the middle of Shanghai feeling like we were back in America for a couple of hours especially sharing the evening with friends.  We had good messy bbq ribs and lots of beer to wash it all down with.  And you can see from the pictures, we had a little fun with the lasso too...

Bill and Michelle on East Najing Road
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So the day after going to Hangzou, we had one task, and that was to get the dress after or around 3 as that was when it'd be ready.  Before that, we went to the main part of downtown to go up in the sky tower but of course, it was cloudy and rainy so that seemed pointless.  We looked for the building Gigi had told us that a Japanese company had designed, and she said that was better to go up than the sky tower.  She wasn't sure but thought it is or at one point the tallest building in the world  The interesting part about this building is the original design as the Japanese designed the bottom part of the building to be the shape of a samurai sword and to top the building was suppose to be a circular shape representing the rising sun.  Therefore, it was going to look like the sword was cutting the rising sun right in the center of downtown Shanghai. The Chinese realized this during construction, and construction was halted until the top of the building was change to be a bridge instead.  And so, the Japanese almost got away with it, but the Chinese caught it in time.

And back to the shop we went to pick up the dress.   The dressmakers were willing to drop everything off at our hotel, but I realized I wouldn't be able to try the dress on again as I couldn't tie the back up by myself.  So Bill left as the two girls put me back in my dress.  This time it had more of a finished feeling to it, and Bill said that he was happy to see a smile on my face when I went to get him that he didn't see last time.  We packed the dress and vest up so it could be shipped back to CA.  We never found the DHL that lonely planet said was down the street from us, so we had to leave the dress for Gigi to pick up and mail since it was Sat and we were leaving early the next day.

But we did see a CPK, however, we weren't hungry at the time. So we went down to the bund to see more of Shanghai and see more lights.  However, it was getting cold and raining.  So we eventually stopped for dinner, but ended up at a smokey tea cafe but by that time were too hungry to keep looking. And so, we really missed out on CPK because it would have been better than what we got.  Then we tried to walk to the water to get a look at the view, but the road work closed all that area off. Bill tried to make it up to me by getting a massage on the 5th floor of the building we ate in.

However, after waiting 1 1/2 and still unsure of when we'd be called, we decided to leave.  Bill let the lady know, "We've been here an hour in half, and you still never answered the question of how long.  You've helped and let everyone around us know, I'm just f****** done."  She looked at him with a blank face as steam was coming out of his ear.  And after all that, we still missed the subway because it had just closed and we had to get a taxi back.  Off to Macau (Vegas of the East) hoping for a bit of luck...

Michelle