Coming home

I’m writing this in the airplane and I’ll post it as soon as we’ll get home and get the basic chores done.

Shortly after posting the previous entry, I got call from my aunt in Finland. She had heard from the news that there had been an earthquake in Indonesia and tsunamis had killed several thousand people in the area. She wasn’t sure whether we were okay or not. Fortunately Singapore was protected by Sumatra island.

We turned tv on for understanding more and called home to reassure that we’re okay and there’s no emergency in Singapore. The images in BBC were grim and the damage was really devastating.

I then realised that a couple of our friends are on holiday in Maldives that was hit by the tsunami, too. I couldn’t reach them for a few days, but they acknowledged us two days ago that they are ok. Today, I read Helsingin Sanomat, the major Finnish newspaper, for the first time after the disaster and I learned how grim the situation has been for Finnish tourists. Several dozen people have died and more are still missing. Several pages of the paper went through the distress of the victims and their relatives. This is going to go on for a long time…

Now I also understand better my mom that urged us to come back to Finland immediately. The media in Asia is concentrating more on the local population — which is quite understandable — and we got feeling that there were not that much of casualties with tourists. But there are still several thousand people from the Nordic countries missing.

The life in Shanghai was not much changed from the catastrophe, as the city is so far away from the Indian ocean.

We continued to explore the city piece by piece. I can say that the place is really huge; you can take a metro in the downtown, travel under ground for twenty minutes and still pop up in the downtown. There are over 15 million inhabitants in the city, and the city administration will have huge challenges when the people demand better housing and services, or when they buy their first private cars.

Currently, the traffic is still tolerable. The traffic rules are extremely flexible, like in France, and there might be cars and bikers going to every direction in intersections simultaneously. Some intersections have to have traffic police in addition to traffic lights to keep things in a shape.

The weather was not for us. It rained whole Tuesday; the weather report promised drizzle, but we got full rain. The day was spent in shopping, travelling with the metro and taxis from one shopping center to another. We didn’t find that much, as most of the brands were Chinese and we weren’t that interested in them.

It was also bitterly cold, almost zero degrees, and windy. We were prepared with autumn clothes and thus had to wear an extra shirt to keep warm. The shops had their doors open and the ground floor was really chilly. I felt pity for the clerks, as they were seemingly cold. Maybe they are accustomed to it.

Wednesday was better day, as it wasn’t raining. The weather was still cold, but as the sun shone from time to time, it was more bearable than the day before. We toured the basic tourist attractions, the Bund and the Old Town, and visited Chinese gardens. I took a lot of photos, some of them may be eligible for publishing later.

As I mentioned earlier, we had a table reservation for the “Canton” restaurant on 56th floor in Grand Hyatt building. Before going to the restaurant, we visited the top floor bar “Cloud 9″ on 86th floor to have a couple of drinks and take some more photographs of the city in night. I should have brought my tripod with me, as there wasn’t enough light — the city is surprisingly dimly lit. I managed to get some snaps, though.

The bar itself was very nice experience, I can heartily recommend Cloud 9 for both views and the ambience. After the drinks, we ventured 30 floors down and got seated on a table facing the river. This was the first time that I’ve eaten in a fine-dining Chinese. The experience was worth of it, the food was good and the views spectacular.

It rained again on Thursday. The rain turned into snow in the afternoon, and we felt miserable due to coldness and wind. As this was the last full day in our trip, we had more relaxed program; visited a few top-notch malls in the western part on Nanjing Road. I found good looking pair of shoes in Bally store, but unfortunately the model wasn’t suited for my feet. I found myself daydreaming several times being wealthy enough to shop in these shops on constant basis. Maybe some day, but then I might be too old to really enjoy the experience.

For the lunch, we took taxi to Xintiandi plaza in the French Concession. We had been there on Tuesday for lunch, and just missed the lunch offer in T8, one of the top 50 restaurants in the world. This time we managed to get there on time. Even getting lost together with the taxi driver didn’t stop us.

The lunch was the best I’ve ever had. The kitchen is a fusion of Chinese and Mediterranean cuisines and the portions were just delicious. As an appetiser, I ate herb gnocchis that were quite ordinary, but the main course was a real killer. Crispy Peking duck pizza, served with some greens. I don’t have enough words to describe the exquisite taste of the crispy, dark duck spiced with sweet balsamico. It was something out of this world. My mouth gets moist even now, while I’m thinking of the portion…

After the lunch experience, we shopped some groceries for the next day’s breakfast and took metro to the hotel. It was past four when we finally got to the hotel. The rest of the day was spent in packing and writing reviews about the places — have to write things down before my memory removes or adds details.

Today, we woke up early and took a taxi to the airport. There, we found out that our flight is delayed — as most of the other flights, too. We got coupons to a Japanese luncheon and ate noodles for the breakfast. I’d preferred eel or tempuri on rice, but only beef noodles were available… All the other passangers had the same coupons and had flooded the place.

The last Chinese notes were spent in the airport shops, and then we just sat and wait. And sat and wait. We didn’t get any information from the airport monitors, except that most of the flights are delayed. Some of the planes were fortunately boarding, so there was hope that we would eventually get into the plane.

After waiting an hour or so, we saw Finnair stewardesses and thought that the plane had landed, but they were the crew for our flight. After another hour, we saw our plane landing and finally after changing the port once, we were allowed to board the plane.

The captain told the reason for the delay in the plane: The whole airport had been closed in the morning due to icy weather and snow. The plane was ordered to land in Beijing and wait until the airport is opened again. Fortunately, the sun started to shine and melted the ice.

We’ll be in Helsinki three hours later. As today is the New Year’s eve, the shops will close at six. We’ll be in the airport on 17.30. I don’t remember whether we have anything in the fridge, but fortunately there is one small shop open till late in Lauttasaari.

Hopefully there are no further delays or other nasty surprises in store for us. When we’ll get our luggage, we’ll take a taxi home and try to stay awake until the midnight.