Up at 4am to leave for Toronto to catch our flight.

Flight delayed for an hour after we were all inside. There was an old guy behind us who refused to move to his assigned seat, because of his heart condition. Announcement came on saying there was a delay because of some maintenance paperwork screwup. But it was finally resolved just about the same time that old guy was taken care of. Coincidence?

Flight otherwise uneventful. But not more than a wink of sleep. God, I hate economy class. Read half of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.

After arrival in Shanghai, long wait for immigration. Signs very confusing. Only one lane labelled for “Foreigners”, with a huge line behind it. But some woman kept grabbing bunches of foreigners and moving them to other lanes. The signs were clearly completely meaningless. After 24 hours without sleep, I wasn’t much in the mood for it.

Took bus downtown. Every building in Shanhai is positively festooned with window-mounted air-conditioners. Seems like some kind of central air-conditioning system would be more efficient.

We were met by Sabrina’s family for dinner. Parents, sister, brother-in-law and neice. Restaurant was in an old historic train station. If you were lucky, you could get a table in an old dining car (we didn’t). Food was Chinese, but very unlike what we see in restaurants in Canada. Many different appetizers, and main courses of pork and a steamed fish.

Sabrina’s brother-in-law Stephen speaks good English. He works for Freescale (semiconductor spin-off from Motorola) in distribution.

Sabrina’s young neice, after some convincing, recited a simple story in English. The story was about a prince who finds various thing while walking in a forest. Eventually he meets a girl in the forest, marries her, and they live happily ever after. The story was not very good, lacking character development or plot. But it was well read. I then demonstrated my astonishing command of Mandarin by counting to ten.

After dinner, we were delivered by taxi to one of the two family residences in Shanghai, one which is currently empty, but well-equipped and comfortable. No elevator, I carried my fairly heavy suitcase up six floors. Had a desperately needed shower, marred by very low water pressure and an on-demand water heater that liked to shut off spontaneously. But still very welcome.

About 32 hours after waking up, got some desperately needed sleep.