Elizabeth's Visit, Part 1 - Shanghai

Elizabeth came to visit us for 10 days in April, which included her 24th birthday.  Because she not only visited Shanghai with our family in 2005, but also visited with Chris in 2012, she really wasn't interested in seeing much of Shanghai. She wanted to travel.

Her main wishes in Shanghai included seeing Peter, Nickle & the kids and getting inexpensive prescription sunglasses and new glasses at the eyeglass market.  So, she arrived on Wednesday, and we took her to dinner at the Big Bamboo, one of the kids' favorites, with Peter and the kids.  Unfortunately, Nickle was in Singapore when Elizabeth arrived and the in the U.S. when we were in town between trips, so Elizabeth will have to wait until Peter & Nickle move back to N.Y. to see Nickle.

On Thursday, 4/17, Elizabeth and I headed to the eyeglass market first thing.  We ordered her 2 pairs of prescription sunglasses, a regular pair of glasses for her and a pair of Chris's

reading glasses, all for about $100 US.  Such a great deal!  Then we went to Xintandi, a pretty area of restaurants and shops, to meet Michelle, one of Elizabeth's best friends from UPenn, who also happened to be in Shanghai visiting her grandparents.  Michelle and Beth's visits overlapped by one day, so we met Michelle and went to lunch at Din Tai Fung, one of our favorite Chinese restaurants.  After lunch, we headed to the South Bund Fabric Market to get some clothes made.  Michelle picked out a couple of blouses and a couple of jackets and Beth got a trench coat, a leather jacket and 3 blouses.  I even got a couple of nice silk tops, all of which would be ready the following week, after we returned from Xi'an.  

We parted with Michelle after the Fabric Market and headed back to Pudong, stopping for DVDs before picking up Chris for an Indian dinner at Kebabs on the Grill.  Unfortunately, the area of India that their food is from uses a LOT of nuts, so I had much less choice in what I could eat there, but Chris & Elizabeth enjoyed the food.

We watched a number of DVDs while Beth was here and enjoyed a lot of good ethnic food.  But after such a busy day in Shanghai, we had to get up early the next morning to head to the airport for phase two, our Shanghai Expatriates Association (SEA)-sponsored group tour to Xi'an and Luoyang.