Day 214: Last full day in China — Roaming Shanghai Freee!
James slept until after 9 am! Teddy had had a 6 am phone call with someone back in SF so he’d been up forever and had exercised and eaten by the time we staggered downstairs.
As eager as we were for “western breakfast,” I actually went for two rounds of jianbing, the Shanghai pancakes we discovered on the food tour yesterday. Even more delicious this time because I wasn’t so stuffed.
At one point while Willa was listening to Teddy tell me something about his phone call, she butted in to tell her father, “You should stop saying ‘you know’ so much.” Daaaaaayum, Willa! Hahaha. Called out.
We did school after breakfast — I went to the bar area with the assistance of three different staff escorts — and Teddy and James went back to our room.
By lunch we were ready to head out and have fun on our own. We decided to spend the afternoon wandering around the French Concession some more, with a few casual destinations and missions as our guides.
For all the amazing food in town, we all agreed we wanted more Din Tai Fung, and went to the location in a mall near the Concession. There were no regrets. More soup dumplings, more pork buns.
I will dream about those things. And a side of sliced seedless mini cucumbers — super crunchy — topped only with sesame oil, rock salt and chili flakes. Come ON. So good.
Missions: 1) Deodorant 2) a kids’ clothing store called Chou Chou Chic 3) a spin class I’d signed up for.
James was generally a pest because it was hot and he doesn’t do aimless wandering very well in the heat, period. We had to stop for a cold drink at least once before Teddy threw in the towel and decided to head home.
I peeled off for my spin class by 5:30 while Teddy took them in to Chou Chou Chic and bought Willa two adorable dresses.
Somehow he got them to walk all the way back home.
My spin class — SpinBack — was a 20-minute walk away on the 5th floor of a totally random, kind of run-down office (?) building. It was a far cry from the polished classes I’ve been trying elsewhere — more on par with the homemade Santiago, Chile class I did.
But it was good to get some exercise.
These spin classes excursions are among some of the most random and fun things I’ve done this year.
My walk home was such a treat. No kids, no rush, just myself and a 30-minute walk ahead of me on a warm and lively summer night in Shanghai. Walked through a million alleyways and bustling streets and enjoyed the rare solo time.
Back at the hotel it was time to pack up.
The staff at the Ritz had delivered us four towels monogrammed with our names, and two giant stuffed animal backpacks. So sweet, but obviously completely impractical.
We organized our stuff into 4 piles:
- Pack up to take with us
- Throw away/leave for housekeeping (this is always a big pile, it seems)
- Ship home (ready after 3 weeks in China to unload clothes and souvenirs)
- Pretend to take to airport with us
Spoiler alert: This last one was a “dummy” bag with the damn towels and kid packpacks that we had to make a big show of bringing to the airport the next day as we waved goodbye to the Ritz staff — only to then give it to the airport bathroom cleaning lady an hour later.
I’ll miss China. One of my favorite parts was the fact that it’s totally culturally acceptable to shove and elbow your way through a crowd, yelling at people to get out of the way. At first it’s jarring, then, when you realize it means that YOU TOO get to behave this way, it becomes amazingly therapeutic. All you want to do in Times Square is scream, “EXCUUUUUSE ME,” and toss annoying tourists out of your way to make a path. But you can’t.
Here, you can. And no one bats an eye. It’s awesome.
