A Shanghai Night

So early, early the next morning we got up to get on a plane. This was the most nerve wracking part of the trip for me because it was at this point that we were stepping out on our own. Once our rep dropped us off at the airport (along with the one other family from our group), we no longer had a local to yell "help" to.

Unlike the other family, however, we were spending the night at a hotel in Shanghai and then finishing our travel the next day. They were flying it all at once which she said she knew it would be 'brutal' but she'd rather just get home. I was kind of feeling the same way too. Nonetheless, we bid them farewell at the airport.

Now, Hubby had booked the hotel. What he didn't realize when he booked it though (in part because the reservation service online had it marked incorrectly) was that the hotel was not actually at the airport. It was apparently a franchise and while he thought he was getting the one described as a "5 minute walk to the airline terminal", what he actually ended up with was one that was a few miles from the airport.

I wasn't so much worried about that. I figured we could show our reservation sheet to the cabbie and he would find the address for us. I was more worried about getting back to the airport the next morning. Making a cab driver understand where we wanted to go and getting there on time. It turned out that neither was an issue. There was one guy at the hotel who spoke very good English and he made them understand that we needed a wake-up call (backed up by the cheesy alarm clock we had gotten just to be sure) and a taxi in the morning.

That evening, we managed to find edibles for dinner and Hubby even found a Lotus Center (like the Chinese version of Wal-Mart) next door where we got diapers and juice for Emily.

The next morning everything went like clockwork. We even got there earlier than we needed to. We were both feeling quite proud...

Until they informed us our flight had been canceled.