Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Shanghai was lots of fun for us. We were able to mesh our schedule with our friends from home who play in the ‘Indie Rock Group – Paper Lions’. It was a great taste of home for us and it was refreshing to see some familiar faces from familiar places.

We let loose a little bit in Shanghai and came dangerously close to blowing our budget for China but we also had a lot of fun. John was especially kind to us and took us out for a nice dinner and treated us to some ‘Wolfberry Swill’ at his hotel room. We kept him out very late but he fought through it despite being jetlagged.

We spent one whole day at the World Expo. It got off to a shaky start when I had my Swiss Army pocket knife taken from me clearing security on the way in. There are security checks everywhere in China and it had never been a problem before I honestly had forgotten it would be a problem orherwise I would have gladly left it home. We roamed around the grounds and mostly looked at the exteriors of the pavillions as they were usually more interesting than what was inside. At the end of the day (about 10 hours later) we were ready to go home. I decided to stop by the security area to see if I could get my knife back. Luckily for me there was a young girl volunteering that spoke English and was willing to sift through the garbage to find me about a dozen red pocket knives. Mine was among the selection with my initals engraved on it. She had cut her hand but insisted it was nothing. I thanked her and that was that.