Sunday morning and off to the Shangrila for breakfast before the buses take us to the markets. There have been two buses on call the entire time taking us to each restaurant and activity.
I shop with Suzie Klinger who buys some handbags and I buy a jacket - yes they did have my size!! While the excursion was supposed to last 2.5 hours after just one hour we grab a cab and go back to the hotel.
12:00 and off to another beautiful banquet lunch. I am sitting with different people each time and many of them are friends of Ari and Lucy's, young entrepreneurs living in varying parts of the world - Philippines, Singapore and New York for instance and all very interesting.
Lucy's divorced mother Sue lives in Sydney and her boyfriend is a South African Jewish man, Sydney who, with Sue do a lot of the herding and organising. The entire weekend is so well planned it is amazing.
I decide after lunch (at leisure as they say) to walk back to my hotel (Google says 850 metre) and easily find it noting that all of the cabs I had taken, maybe 10, had taken a different and much longer route between hotels. As the fare starts at $A1.35 and includes the first 1 or 2 kilometres there is no benefit to them to going the long way but they all seem to do it.
On this walk I stop at the Carrefours Hypermarket as one does to see what the locals are buying and prices etc. One interesting thing I noted was an entire wall of imported supermarket products and even more interesting how many people were studying these shelves and buying from them.
I first came to China in 2006 and there is an seeming increase in the standard of living and affordability that I have noticed in those five years.
Back to the hotel and I fall alseep on the bed waking in time to walk back to the Shangrila for our banquet dinner. We are bused to a restaurant that is on many levels of a very large building and every single part of it is built in marble, marble and more marble. They usher us into a sumptuous private room on a very large floor which only has private rooms.
The banquet was great and it was followed by two great speeches from Ari's and Lucy's friends. It now seems that there are 80 people here around 35 family, 35 of Ari/Lucy's friends and 10 of Lucy's family.
I am truly struck in action and in the speeches on how generous Ari is not only with the festivities but they spoke of his mentoring and helping friends start their businesses etc..
Anyway back to the hotel for a pre-wedding day early night for all.
XD
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