I did feel a little silly to arrive in Shanghai to work in the hotel room. I comfort myself that at least it was a luxurious work environment. Haha.
I woke up at 6am bcos I planned to go to the gym. It was hard. In fact, it was harder than other business trip maybe bcos I had an early flight, early morning and a long hard day.
I made it on sheer will power. The gym is decent. I did my hiit and had muscle ache for the next 3 days. Lol.
I had plenty of time to get ready before meeting my colleague for bfast at 8am. The spread was really good but I had to control bcos it would be a whole day of eating.
The view from the restaurant.
My meetings started at 9am and I took the calls from the hotel. There was a company lunch and I took a taxi to the lunch venue. I didn’t feel very cold but my colleague who saw how little I was wearing, were very worried for me. Haha.
Lunch was at a very elaborately decorated vegetarian restaurant bcos some of the colleagues are vegetarian. We were even given a tour of the restaurant before lunch was served. It was refurnished from an old house.
Not only is the restaurant fanciful but the food too. We had to figured out which part of the food was not edible and told that the leaves were for decoration.
Atas siol. It didn’t even taste like I was eating vegetarian food bcos it was so flavourful. I was so full from the multiple courses.
We headed back to the hotel for meetings and catchup before the company annual event - which was the main reason why I was in Shanghai. I have come to realised that the China colleagues are very hospitable and whatever they plan/ do will be very elaborated. They even got the guests (us) makeup artists and costume. I didn’t know that.
I have the very trendy red eye shadow and the 卧蚕. We were all ushered to the restaurant, which is a short walk from the office at 6ish. There was barely much time in the office. The dinner was at a German restaurant and there were a lot of meat! Such a contrast from lunch.
This was my costume for the night.
Now that I looked at it, I realised why I was told that I looked like a 女侠. 我的剑呢?
The dinner ended at 9.30pm and it was 10ish by the time we were back to the hotel. A little email and I could barely open my eyes.
Before I knew it, my alarm rang at 6am. It was just as hard to drag myself to the gym. It was treadmill this time.
Treadmill to a lovely view. I could see the moving vessels while doing my 4.5km. It was a busy river. The treadmill is different from what I am used to. It has this treaded run pad and super noisy. I supposed it is meant to increase friction but I ended up tripping several times.
Bfast at 8am again!
I headed back to the room for calls again, then checked out and to the office at 11am.
My colleague insisted that we should do lunch but I wasn’t even hungry from bfast. Then again, the 蟹黄面 that she recommended was so good.
Then I got to drink Chagee! Auntie S said that she had to wait up to 40 mins when she ordered in Singapore. There was almost no Q but online orders came in rapidly and each order was more than 10 cups. My colleague said that it is common to do mini celebrations in office with bubble tea, thus the mass order.
My Chagee!
The famous bag that I see everybody carries. I brought it home.
How was my red milk tea? It tasted normal leh. Haha. It definitely isn’t worth a 40mins wait in Singapore. My colleague ordered that red milk tea bcos it is one of the top selling. Just normal lah.
I skipped dinner, worked and met people and soon it was 8pm and time to leave for the airport. While in the car to the airport, Daddy Lim texted that the home digital lock had gone crazy and he couldn’t unlock the door. The kids were thankfully still at my brother’s place and school. Daddy Lim tried many of the pins that we had used but none worked and was super frustrated.
I recently tried changing the lock pin and knew that there was a YouTube video on how to reset/ change pin etc. However, the man just refused to watch the entire video to find the relevant portion of the video and ended up calling the locksmith for $250. I had to screenshot and send him the instructions and it worked! Zzzzzzz.. so he had to ask the locksmith not to come and paid $50. No wonder Daddy Lim was so glad that I was coming home. He said that he was super busy in those few days that I was away.
I was at the airport at about 9pm and the checked in counters were just prepping for checking in. Long qs were forming. Then I realised that there is a separate counter for Krisflyer Elite Silver members. Yes, I managed to keep my status last year with the final Beijing trip. Hohoho.
I totally enjoy the short checkin Q and the boarding priority.
I was hungry and had pizza and cinnamon bun.
I know I shouldn’t but had supper on the flight. Hoho.
The flight was very full and there was this Chinese man in the middle seat while I was in the aisle seat. While I understand that the hand rest is the middle seat person privilege, he was constantly invading into my air space. I had to scoot to one side of my seat to avoid any physical contact. I duno if it was bcos of that or the Chagee tea, which my colleague said that it is high in caffeine, I slept so badly that I was so irritated.
Thankfully, I made it alive back home. The flight was 5 hours long, which is similar to the flight time for Mumbai but bcos there was no time difference, I got home earlier to rest before my meetings in the afternoon.
So yah, 1st trip done!
Mummy Lim
