Shanghai to London to Goteborg

Well, before leaving the Ramada Airport Hotel in Shanghai, I had a great breakfast. It included bacon, sausage, pastry, poached egg, watermelon, rock melon, orange juice, and tea. If I had wanted to be into conspicuous consumption, I could have had eggs or pancakes made to order by the resident chef on call, but I decided to settle for the buffet.

Anyway, I enjoyed my stay at the Ramada even though I though the 6 fake 30 foot palms in the foyer a bit pretentious. I have included a shot of the terminal area outside of my 5th floor balcony window on the night before-


My Shanghai to London trip was good, although it did not start very well: I just could not find the China Eastern Business class check in line, so I went into the economy check-in line. Talk about a difference in service. Eventually, (after I reached the head of the queue), I was directed to the right place where I was very nicely taken care of. I spent a good bit of time in the Business class lounge where I lounged around until boarding. I was then led through a secret passageway underneath the main boarding floor which allowed us privileged business class to avoid the boarding queues altogether.

The food was still good. For mains I had roast duck and stir fried steak. Extras included green salad, smoked pork, kiwi fruit, rock melon, bean curd with chili sauce, guyere cheese, bread rolls, a piece of chocolate, and a piece of rock candy.

I sat next to a Mrs Elle Chen who was a Sea Freight assistant manager for Exel -- a large Shanghai transport company. She is a Skyper who wants to improve her English so we have exchanged our Skype IDs.

I caught a Hotel Hoppa to get to my Hotel in London. The traffic was bad. It took us 30-40 minutes to get the 3 or 4 kilometers required. The hotel room was clean but no frills (anything extra cost.) The internet charges were pretty high, but I didn't get a chance to use it as I ran out of juice on the laptop, and I didn't have the converter to recharge in the UK. In the future I will buy a converter plug wherever I go.

I had a great breakfast at Jury's Inn at Heathrow including scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, croissant, fruit, and orange juice.
I caught the plane to Sweden with no dramas, although I was amazed how busy everything was at Heathrow airport. The flight was no frills: I even had to buy may chicken sandwich and coke lunch.
Sture was waiting for me to clear customs. (The Swedish Customs were very civilized, by the way.) He took me to his home, where I had some of George Bascay's Hungarian goulash. Here is a picture of the rear of Sture's house:

Lena and Sture then took me mushroom hunting in a close by forest/lake area where they we swimming, and we picked wild mushrooms. Lena then fixed a fabulous dinner which included frying the wild mushrooms in butter.


Here are some pictures from our mushroom hunt:

Sture and Ben at Rest

The Lake Sture and Lena Swam At

A Nice Little Waterfall

The Quarry