The world's worst tour guide...

My kind hosts at Publicitas China allowed me a day-off on Monday to help Abigail and the children to find their way around Shanghai. My sense of direction is generally so poor that this could have been acutely embarrassing and a very good example of the blind leading the blind. Thank God for the world's cheapest and most plentiful (when it's not raining) taxi fleet in the world.

We arranged a months membership to the swimming pool / gym across the road for Abigail so there will always be somewhere for her to take the little monsters if they are driving her mad.

Next stop, Nanjing Road to show her some of the glitzy shops where she can (window) shop and some of the less pricey ones where you can actually afford to buy stuff. Then a few more strategic stops around town for orientation.

I am pleased to say that we managed to find time for An Excellent Lunch (TM) at one of the restaurants I really enjoyed during my last visit.

Of course when I was last here, I had Tony's assistance to navigate the menu. Since I was allegedly the expert guide for my family for the day, I bluffed my way through a conversation with the waiter and more by luck than anything else, ended up with some fantastic dishes. It could have been very different - years ago during a trip to Salamanca, I ordered by mistake and then forced myself to eat pigs ears when a pathetic combination of bravado/pride/stupidity caused me to reject the English menu and go off-piste with my choice of dishes.

Lilli thought it was fantastic to meet the fish which we were shortly to eat, brought to our table for inspection flapping around in a big red bucket. Max tucked into the tofu with crab meat, both of them slurped the noodles and equally enjoyed the fish. By telling them that the sweet Shanghai style sauce in which it was served was Heinz tomato ketchup, they were easily convinced to try it. Max managed to stab both himself and some food with a chopstick.

Again, they were little celebrities and fellow diners and all the staff made a massive fuss over them.

Monday night. Max woke up throughout the night at alarmingly regular intervals, presumably sufering from jet lag. After about 1 am I was oblivious to this because Abigail slept on the floor next to him all night to keep him quiet and allow me to sleep a bit. She is a saint.