Friday afternoon was a typical work period, although we are both starting to get a bit worn out. At 5:30pm Grace and Nancy agreed to help me shop for presents for my children - Isabelle 4 1/2 and Adam 2. Mike was still not feeling well and stayed at the office a bit longer to finish up a final task.
We walked back to my hotel so that I can drop off my 40lb work backpack and grabbed my remaining Chinese cash (called RMB's) The current rate was about 7.33 RMB = $1 US. To my suprise, the hotel had a large shopping center in the same building that we took a side elevator down to. They took me to the children's floor of this store. It was very western in feel, and again similar to a Boston Store, but many stories tall (5 or 6, at least). Wandering the toys it struck me as strange that there was no particular order to the toys - infant and 6 yr. old, boys and girls intermixed. After finding a few nice items for each, we took them over to a counter to have some of them wrapped. The did a fantastic job wrapping, I have never seen such meticulous wrapping work before.
The took me next through the children's clothes area and I held out as long as I could, but was tired enough that I requested to return to my room. There I took it easy watching a little TV and enjoying room service of tomato basil soup and apple pie ala mode (Mom, no worries - your's is still the world's best!).
Saturday morning, breakfast, office by 8:00am. I will spend a couple of hours wrapping up some work with Mike and saying goodbye to my many new friends. A group will take me out to lunch, swing by my hotel, and drop me off at the airport at noon for my 2:00pm flight home.
I will provide at least one more blog with my trip home and some final thoughts.
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