We arrived in Shanghai on Friday night and had one more night at where I would really like to call my residence, the Jin Mao building (Grand Hyatt Hotel). I cannot tell you how much I love that place. I think at this point, I am cut off from staying and eating there since the relocation company is no longer making the arrangements for us (and footing the bill).

At 1:30pm on Saturday, a driver and the individual from the relocation company, Wu, met us at the Jin Mao to take us to our apartment. The bellboys at the Grand Hyatt, worked so hard (and were so obviously struggling) moving our bags into the car, that I felt horrible that I could not give them a tip (no tipping in China.) They were all grunting and laughing and making it very obvious that the bags were heavy. Mea culpa. Next time, we will pack differently. We used the approach we used in Mexico (four big bags), which worked great then, but was not the right approach (many smaller bags) for this trip. Oh well.

The landlord and a guy setting up our phones was in the apartment when we arrived. The landlord and Woo went through the apartment with Andy showing him how everything worked. <i>There are so many electronic aspects of this apartment, I feel like we have a little army to take care of. I guess that is how it is in US homes too, but since this place is smaller, it just feels like something is always beeping or turning itself on. </i>

I started putting sheets on the bed, tearing plastic off of new lamps and other furniture and basically starting the settling in process. The DSL guy came later and by the afternoon we were online and wireless. That night, we went to dinner with John, Andy’s boss, and tried to stay awake long enough to appease the Jet Lag Gods. I was so tired, I honestly as I type cannot even remember where we went to dinner.

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