It’s Sunday evening about 10:15 PM in Shanghai, and I just got back from a full day of activities in Shanghai. 

 

First of all, I had a terrific dinner with David (my friend from Fr. Lauderdale) in Tokyo Friday night.  He got to the hotel about 5:45 PM from his non-stop flight from Detroit.  I meet him in the lobby of the hotel and we decided to meet back in the lobby at 6:30 and walk down the street to my favorite restaurant called Imari’s.  This is one of those Japanese restaurants where everything is cooked on a grill right in front of you.  It’s terrific.

 

We both had an order of gyoza (a Japanese version of a Chinese dumpling), and David had garlic pork and I had baked salmon in “Imari sauce.”  This is specialty dish that the gentleman that owns the restaurant has invented.  The sauce is something that contains just about everything from the kitchen and is mixed with butter and a cream sauce and poured over baked salmon.  It’s literally to die for and the number of calories and cholesterol that is probably in this dish could literally kill you if you had if often enough!    But since I don’t have it all that often, it really is a treat when I do!

 

After walking back to our hotel, David helped me load my TV commercials into the “News” section of my website, so now you can see the commercials and listen to the current radio ads, by simply clicking on the “TV Commercial #1,” etc. then on the “click here” and wait for it to download on your computer.

 

Saturday, David flew back to Detroit and I flew to Shanghai.   The flight from Tokyo to Shanghai was only about 3 hours, so seemed rather fast. 

 

We arrived at the hotel about 10:30 PM and I got to sleep about midnight.  I awoke at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning, had some breakfast and caught the hotel shuttle to the jewelry market at 9:30 AM.

 

I meet Shinichi at 10:00 and he stayed with me all day and helped me with the jewelry. 

 

About 3:00 PM we headed to his place on the other side of Shanghai and his partner, Ron, was fixing dinner for us.  It was a wonderful meal – and since I don’t get “home cooking” very often, it tasted rather good.

 

Ron and Shinichi live on the 23^rd floor for a twenty-three story building.  The view from their balcony is spectacular!  You can see all over downtown Shanghai.  It really is amazing.  Unfortunately, Sunday night it was kind of foggy/cloudy and the view wasn’t as good as usual.  I had taken my camera with me, so I could add the view in this blog, but will have to wait until next month and hope that it is clearer that day.

 

Shinichi and Ron have a cat named Zack to whom I have become “grandpa!”  J  It’s always fun playing with Zack!

 

While Ron was cooking, Shinichi helped me get all of the new jewelry tagged and marked with all of the appropriate markings for customs when I arrive in Detroit.  This is a process that takes quite a bit of time, but with someone helping, it goes much quicker.  Shinichi has helped me do this many times in the past, so he’s quite good at it.

 

After a relaxing evening and good food, it was time for me to head back to say, “good night” to two wonderful friends and head back to my hotel on the other side of Shanghai.  Because it was getting late and I was pretty tired by this time, I decided to take a taxi instead of the subway, which would have meant several line changes and about a 4-5 block walk on each end.  I was carrying quite a bit of new jewelry and just decided to take the easier way back.

 

I got back to the hotel about 9:00 PM, and then got to work on the paperwork for getting all of the new jewelry though U.S. customs in Detroit.

 

It’s about 10:30 PM right now, and we have a 6:00 AM wake-up call tomorrow morning for our non-stop flight back to Detroit.

 

When I get to Detroit, if all goes as planned, I will have a 4 hour wait in Detroit before my flight to Bloomington and then my drive home to Monticello.

 

I will be glad to see my own bed Monday night!

 

Pearls & More Jewelry will be open (if all goes as planned) on March 1^st from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM.  Please check the calendar page of this website for all of March’s hours.

 

See you soon…..