So last week my time at the school drew to a close. Got some nice cards from the kids and an incredibly heavy tea caddy from my boss. Went out for one last night at Le Cargo and spent most of Saturday sorting, packing and throwing things away. On Sunday we got to Shanghai by train and went to the Metropole. Had a nice meal at the veggie restaurant Gongdelin and a drink in the Captain's Bar overlooking Pudong by night. Next day we did the cultural thing and went to the museum (but it's a really good museum!) and went to the Yu Gardens place for a look around the shops even though both our bags were heavy and full enough to dissuade us from buying anything.

In the evening we met up with Sly and then went to meet Victor and his new wife (Victor being my friend who is also into GTD). Victor also invited a friend of his who works for Microsoft and we had a bit of a chat about programming, GTD, etc while everyone else looked on, slightly bored. But they also invited me to join with them in working on lifehack.cn, a Chinese lifehacking site and I found today that Victor has set up a Backpack area for us to use.

Next day we met up with Sly again, went to the post office to send some of Zak's stuff back and sold her broken laptop before moving out of the hotel and to Sly's sister's apartment at the end of the number one Metro line. Sly took us out to Windows in the evening, it being a cheap place to drink in Shanghai. Next day Zak and I went up the Pearl Tower and enjoyed the views through the smog on what was quite a nice, if chilly day. Then we went back, cooked some steak for Sly's brother in law and got an early-ish night.

Up at six the next day to get to the airport. Bit of bother there as Zak has two violins and baggage restrictions are pretty tight, especially as we were transiting through the UK. Our plane to Heathrow was delayed so we were able to Fast Track through the security. They didn't even look twice at the violins we were carrying (well, except through the x-ray) which is a bit infuriating with the bother we had in Shanghai. There is no policy on instruments
which is what causes the problem. Anyway, we missed the flight to Manchester, got booked on to the next one and that was delayed an hour as well. So, finally got back home almost exactly 24 hours after leaving for the airport. A long journey.