Shanghai !! Oh Shanghai!!

I was in Shanghai during the last week of November - for work, not pleasure. On the day I was supposed to leave, I heard that Elaine C's brother was tested positive for H1N1 and he was just back from Shanghai!! Not wanting to take any chances of disrupting my plans for the end of the year, I wore a mask all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai. I only removed the mask after dinner and when I was back in my hotel room. Call me paranoid, but better to be safe than sorry. I had enough masks to last me 2 weeks!

The trip was a training trip to learn up a new instruments that we were introducing. I was on a train-the-trainer as I had committed to deliver the training in March next year. There was this girl that I have known since she was knee high to a grasshopper (okay okay - since she was a baby). She is married now and stays in Shanghai with her mum and 2 kids. Charmaine's hubby works in another province and is home only on weekends (i.e. a weekend husband). The reason they stay in Shanghai is because that province does not have an International school for the kids.

Life is not too bad for Charmaine. She got her driver to pick me up from the hotel, went to her apartment for dinner and then had the driver send me back. 2 weeks before my visit, her Malaysian cousins visited her too and spruced up the place with a lot of live flowers and plants.

It must have been at least 2 years since my last visit to the factory in Shanghai. There were some new faces and a whole bunch of old ones. I am glad they still remembered me. At one time, there were 4 of my previous reports in the same room. It just goes to show that organizational relationships can and will change with time. I also managed to FINALLY meet up with another lady who helps me in my work. Pham - if you are reading this and you want to know who is Helen Sun and what she looks like - tah dah!!!

And Mark P. was in Shanghai a few days earlier than me - conducting interviews for Khoo WK's replacement.

Last but not least - I managed to meet up with my "niang" on the first day before she disappeared to Beijing. Niang means mum in Chinese. How did this lady become my niang? It happened about 2.5 years ago when both of us were on a high achiever trip sponsored by the company. She had brought her daughter along for the cruise from Singapore to Phuket and back and her daughter just took an instant liking to me and stuck to me throughout the trip..

That's how I got a "niang" much younger than me!!

One last comment - Shanghai is not a destination you want to go to now. Most of the tourist spots are under going renovations in preparations for EXPO 2010 which will happen from May 2010. The bund is a mess!! The old temple complex next to the Yu Yuan gardens has half the shops closed for renovations. Even the famous Nanxiang Xiao Loong Bao has half it's capacity as they work on upgrading the restaurant.

Be fore-warned!