My mind was still spinning but I forced myself out of the bed at 1PM. I had to do last minute packing, which was more favorable for me than packing way too early. Can you imagine that I've bee packing boxes and baggages for a month now and I ain't still finished with it?

Plan was to go to the Global Carnival today after packing, but I dyed my hair (root-dye is the right term I guess) and did my girly stuff & beauty regimen to use all the toiletries that I couldn't bring in KL. Left the house at past 6PM, took a taxi. The street was busy with people walking especially near the carnival and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The traffic was so bad. We went straight to the Paulaner Brauhaus Pudong to catch the D'Zone band for the last time & also to leave some stuff with them. I had my tequila sunrise - on a sunset! I also had banana split. D'Zone was thoughful enough to order some snack for us. We finished their show until 8:15PM and watched a few songs of the primetime band there, Blue Heaven.

We all decided to catch a glimpse of the new band who replaced us at the lobby lounge of the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel. I was stunned when we walked in the lobby and heard a swing band playing, complete with drums! They have a different concept this time. A Canadian singer named Anna hooked up with the local jazz musicians. We watched their first set and I think I just heard her sing 5 songs. The intro & outro of the whole set were instrumentals by the Chinese musicians. What an easy job for her!

Got bored and tired and somnolence started sinking in. The street was filled with lots of people. It's like the Chinese was in for a Shanghai Mardi Gras, but no, it's just their National Holiday. Don't ask me what kind of holiday it was because nobody answered that to me when I tried to ask around. Since we couldn't get a taxi around the hotel and didn't want to be in a bloodshed just for hailing a taxi against the Chinese stanby-ers, Marlou and I decided to take a walk to the carnival. It wasn't really far, just around 30 minutes walk. But, I was sooooooooo disappointed when we reached there and found out that it closes at 10PM! What kind of a carnival closes at 10PM?!?

In Manila, one of my stepdad's friends operates the Star City in Roxas Boulevard, which is the amusement park that opens yearly from September until January. And I'd always have a free ride-all-you-can ticket for me, my family and my friends whenever I go there and I could ride all of the rides until 2AM. So what's with the early closing time of the Global Carnival in Shanghai? What a shame! That's the thing that I've been waiting for the whole month. But anyway, my fate and karma is not good these days so I'll just have to go with the flow and stay optimistic that better things are yet to come. Anyway, I still took a sad-faced photo with the Global Carnival unlit behind me, just for me to say that I've been there - only it was closed.

After the disappointment, I began feeling down and tired and sleepy. Marlou and I went to Novotel Hotel in Pudong. Its area boasts a lot of massage parlors. We went to one of them, Marlou had foot massage while I had a body massage. But due to the last experience with a male massager, Marlou made sure that a masseuse would be doing my massage before we parted rooms. My masseuse was really good, she was kinda talkative but hey, it's alright. When she knew that I'm a singer, she started singing and asking me a lot of questions. She even asked me to sing a few Chinese songs, calling each of her colleagues to brag. But I found the masseurs very jolly and very professional. My masseuse said that they even do home/hotel service in a professional way - so no hanky pankies. Contact me if you want to try it, I have the number.

Walked back to Pent-Ox at 12 midnight... now it's 3am soooo have to retire to bed now. At least I still have 2 more hours to rest... have to catch the morning flight to KL.