CarreFour and back to the U.S.

Woke up at 8am and left on my own for CarreFour, the French equivalent of Super Walmart or SuperTarget. Fascinating shopping experience. Nestled in the basement levels of the Jin Mao tower, the first floor had food—saw fresh fish “market” area, also a person who takes fish out o fa live tank and prepares it right there in front of you. Saw hairy crabs bubbling (still alive) on ice. Chefs were preparing fresh dumplings in a cooking demonstration area. Instead of our rotiserrie chicken, they had small cooked birds with head and feet. Whole aisle of rice and another aisle of just cooking oil in two gallon containers. Saw red grapes from the U.S. I bought some bananas, Lays (really was Ruffles) BBQ rib flavored chips, mini Snickers, Wrigley’s Cool Air gum (mentholated) and a bottle of water. One strange thing I saw was people putting 2 dozen eggs in just a plastic produce bag…no box to protect the eggs from cracking. Lower floor had clothes and general merchandise—nothing really fit me. The checkout lanes had about 65 registers but employees were not all that fast in checking people through. There was a register just for pregnant women and disabled people. Returned to the hotel on a 20 minute cab ride for less than $3.

We checked out of our hotel at noon and watched our luggage in the hotel lobby until our van driver arrived to take us to the Maglev station. (The Maglev is a superfast elevated train that is run with magnets and computers…there’s no conductor.) I had front seat in the van, which was less scary than some of our cab rides in the past week, until we ran over an ajar manhole cover on the highway. The Maglev was cheap (40 yuan or $5) and it went 431 km/hr, arriving at the airport in seven minutes. Crazy.

At the airport, we hauled around 10 pieces of luggage between the six of us. (I had one piece of luggage.), checked in, had to go through a Chinese declaration area, next went through China customs, then through security. Whew! In the airport, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant where I had ham and cheese club sandwich. There were no typical fast food restaurants in this mall. Bought some postcards, Mentos and Skittles to use up my remaining yuan.

Flight was fairly uneventful (thankfully). We flew under South Korea this time instead of the North Pole and North Korea. Wonder if that had anything to do with current events and nuclear testing in North Korea. Arrived in Chicago a full hour early (how often does that happen!!?) Went through U.S. Customs and 5-6 guards asked me what my musical instrument was (érhu) as they thought it looked like some kind of drug paraphernalia. Good Lord!