Brunch at the Westin

I’m still suffering from lack of sleep. I can’t get used to the alarm clock going off at 5:45 every morning – and more importantly, I can’t get used to thinking about going to bed before 10 o’clock. This not getting home until nearly 7 o’clock really shortens your evenings. Mind you, it does mean that 8 o’clock is a long lie at the weekend! The traffic coming home tonight was much worse than usual – even for a Friday night, and it took 2 hours to get home. I was all set for a wild Friday night, but now … I have found a way to make the trip more bearable – audio books. I just download the audio book onto my MP3 player, sit myself on the bus and let somebody read me a story! I must get reminders of bedtime stories, ‘cos I realise from time to time that things no longer make sense, and I’ve missed quite a bit of the story. Hmm. I’ve just finished ‘Going Postal’ by Terry Pratchett. Very funny!

I had a treat last Sunday. I went for brunch with Alan and Angie. We met at the Westin hotel at 12 o’clock, and then ate and drank for the next 3 hours. There was an amazing range of food: lobster and crabs, seafood and sushi, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, Peking duck and Chinese specialities, plus flavoured vodka and caviar – just to remind me of my time in Russia!! The champagne, wine, rum cocktails liqueurs and chocolates were included. Just in case that wasn’t enough – there was entertainment: an orchestra, singers, dancers, acrobats and pizza jugglers. Good to watch as you try and make a tiny space for another mouthful. All of this for the very reasonable price of £30 each. Of course, after all that we needed a walk and where better than the Bund? The Bund was the original British quarter of Shanghai. It’s now a walkway beside the river, with fantastic views over to Pudong, the new part of Shanghai. Our wee walk lasted 3 hours, so that was Sunday pretty much over – funnily enough, I had no room for my dinner, so I just had to spend Sunday night doing my ironing.