Today was , thankfully, a much laid back day. Giselle went to work so we were left to our own devices. For musicians, that involves sleeping in and generally not doing much at all! However, we still had serious shopping to do, this time for John. I thought it would be easy to find a made-to-measure tailor in Shanghai but apparently not. We ended up bumping into a member of staff at the hotel who was larger than the average Chinese gentleman and asked him to point us in the right direction. A short walk from the hotel we came across quite a posh tailor shop called Fit Well Fashion. Henry, the elderly tailor, speaks excellent english and knew exactly what we wanted. The fabrics are beautiful - cashmere for the suits and egyptian cotton for the shirts. When I told him we needed a suit made for our wedding, he said "OK I make him look extra handsome". After that, everything he said was about making John look slimmer! I think John got the message!! For $1000 John is getting 2 cashmere suits, 3 egyptian cotton shirts and cufflinks and ties. It's more than he expected to pay, but we didn't expect to find such luxurious fabric. Still got to find where to make a new red zoot suit!
The nearby shopping centre was nice and cool to walk around, but price wise, it was like trying to find a bargain in the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney. It gave us shopping withdrawal. We headed up to the top floor to a nice cafe for lunch. They automatically gave us western menus - not just in english, but with western food...pasta, pizza, sandwiches etc. We had to ask them for the REAL menu. We ordered 2 dishes and some pork buns which we thought would do nicely, but the waiting staff kept coming over and having a little giggle at us. We realised what they were laughing about when the last dish arrived - it was huge! Mind you, we are getting used to being stared at, because often we are the only westerners around. The last dish was like a noodle pizza with the crust being crispy noodles. And yes, we managed to eat most of it!
Giselle and her husband Peter and their little boy whose nickname is Snoopy, picked us up at 4pm for the drive to Hangzhou. Peter's presence was a surprise because he had just returned home from Australia. He is sponsoring our trip, and they are fabulous and generous hosts.
Their company also did some new artwork for our CD we are producing in China. They are very talented! The artwork is most impressive.
Hangzhou is about 3 hours drive from Shanghai. It is a very modern city and appears to be a bit of a party town. The hotel we are staying in is suited to couples away for the weekend. The shower is large enough for 2 and has 3 full length pictures of a naked woman on the wall...tastefully done of course. Everything is very modern and just big enough to spend the whole weekend in bed.
We went to a very famous restaurant for dinner - Zhi Wei Guan. The food was exceptional and the tastes I think quite different to Shanghai. The main feature of Hangzhou is the West Lake which the city is built around. We went on a little pleasure boat around the lake and saw all the pagodas for moon watching and the lights of the city.
Home to bed...another exhausting day!
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