Very nice trip report indeed. Good on you, Kurt!

Whilst I'm absolutely sure all my friends at Air China (especially the ones @ Customer Services) love such comment, but I do have to agree that their services have had been improved dramatically, in particular the last two years (Sorry, I know sometimes I can be very picky, but without people like me, carriers won't realise how important CS means in this industry anyway ).

Kurt, I would like to say SORRY to your friend who had the 'fish choice', which he didn't quite enjoy it, and I have forward this issue to Air China's Customer Services as well as the inflight catering company concerned anyway.

Also, as I am not very familiar with the city of Shanghai, so I guess it is better not to make any suggestion on which hotel is better or whatever. But, the hotel I like the most in Beijing would definitely be Grand Hyatt Beijing (VERY CENTRAL LOCATION, although not as central as the Beijing Hotel and so on).