It has been another full day in Shanghai. This is how the day went.....

7:30 Parent, teacher, student conference before school
8:00 deliver Tim to his office along with a couple dozen Halloween cookies
8:10 very fast breakfast at East West
9:20 arrive at the China Bank building for Chinese lessons (20 minutes late because of traffic)
12:10 leave Chinese class and catch at cab to Yu Yuan Garden (not really a garden but a shopping heaven for craft and quilting crazy people)
12:35 arrive at Yu Garden and walk to McDonald's (yep...big mac and fries for lunch today)
12:50 call Jan and arrange a "drop off location" in Yu Garden (I had too much stuff to carry around Yu Garden....including two Chinese books, two boxes of flash cards, an extra pair of shoes, a novel, and three quilting magazines)
12:52 change shoes (tall boots are not comfortable on long expeditions in the "Garden")
12:55 use the bathroom at McDonald's (they have "Western" style toilets)
1:00 meet friends at the taxi station in Yu Garden
1:03 meet Jan and unload my backpack into the car (must have room for purchases in the backpack)
1:05 proceed to the "bead/bag/tassel building to search for all things interesting
2:00ish leave the bead/bag/tassel building and go to the "strong and stretchy fish line" building and search for a specific fish line
2:30ish leave the "fish line" building and stumble into the bulk bead shop where you can order bags and bags of beads
2:35 commence negotiations for a "joint venture" bead purchase
3:30 finish bead order and proceed to the Costco for Crafts building (I think this is what heaven is going to be like)
3:45 talk to Abi about her after school plans
3:47 talk to Tim about Abi's after school plans
4:00 leave Costco for crafts and proceed to "the ribbon street"
4:05 get called back to the bead store because they changed their mind about the price of our "joint venture" beads (not kidding!!!)
4:10 stop at the ribbon store on the way back to the bead store and buy several yangs of ribbon ( a yang is 91cm....we do not know why they sell it in yangs but one yang is .995 of one yard so I am just going to call it a yard)
4:15 text message Xiao Zhang about dinner
4:20 talk to Tim about transportation
4:21 send Jan to pick up Tim and Abi
4:30 leave ribbon store and walk back to bead store
4:32 discuss bead prices as we prepared to renegotiate with the bead store
4:35 listen to my friend (with a very English accent) tell the bead clerk (through an interpreter) about poor business practices of reneging on a deal while myself and our other two friends tried to keep a straight face
4:40 cancelled the bead order due to inflated prices and the "you can't changing your mind after the deal is done" principle
4:43 arrive at Starbucks for a much needed caffeine fix
4:50 say goodbye to friends and walk to the ferry station
5:00 ride the ferry to Pudong and walk to our apartment
5:30 check on dinner and Xiao Zhang
5:45 greet Abi and Tim
6:00 read email
6:30 eat dinner
7:00ish start Chinese home work
9:30ish finish Chinese homework
10:00 check on Abi and get her some tea and a few Advil (homework causes headaches)
10:30 blog blog blog
11:04 say good night


PS: While Tim and I were on a walk yesterday a young couple came up to me and asked if I would take a picture. I thought they wanted me to take a picture of them....nope! They both wanted their picture taken WITH me. How weird is that??? This is not the first time this has happened. I said okay and they took the pictures. As we were walking home Tim and I both wondered where those pictures might turn up. That is a scary thought. So......if you see my picture on the internet in some strange place.....possibly with someone else's body.....just remember it's fake!!!