Nanjing, in all her smoggy glory.

I love Shanghai. We got off to a rocky start on our trip. I thought the bus left at 9:40, but it actually left at 8:20. How did I get that so wrong? Fortunately, we were traveling with some other church friends so they called to say "where are you?!" It's times like that when it's so painful not to be driving myself. I have to sit patiently and wait while Driver Fang (seemingly) takes her time to drive carefully through traffic. It's times like that when I need Mr. Du! He'd drive on the sidewalk to get me there on time :) However, we were able to catch up with the bus at it's second stop before it left town.

The ride to Shanghai was quite uneventful. Chris and I watched the most recent two episodes of LOST while the boys played on their Gameboys.

Once we arrived in Shanghai, we parted ways with the church friends. The hotel they're staying in doesn't have any rooms that will fit our family. We'd have to book two rooms, which we don't like doing. We want to be together :) We went back to a hotel we've used in the past. We can rent a two bedroom apartment, complete with kitchen, for about $70/night.

On to the reason why I love Shanghai: it's so foreigner-friendly. We ate lunch in a western cafe we came across at the mall. I had couscous with lentils and roasted eggplant. It was so very delicious. It also had sour cream on it. What a treat! Next we had "real" ice cream and went shopping at Toys R Us. We hit the English bookstore and then found a grocery store that sold Fruit Roll-ups. I've heard people say that it's possible to live in Shanghai and never really "live in China". I can see why.

Although I enjoy all these western treats, I wouldn't make a habit of it if we lived in Shanghai. It's a nice splurge, but an expensive one.