Today's journey to fix Anna's trumpet

Anna came home from school on Tuesday and said the music teacher told her that her trumpet was broken.  Two of the 3 valves were making lots of noise when you pushed them down.  I didn't remember them doing that before.  The third valve wasn't letting air pass through it.  I knew how to unscrew the valve and fit that.  Oh well, I guess I need to find a place to get it fixed quickly. I didn't want her to get behind.  I looked online for the business that supplies Concordia with their instruments.  That's where this one came from.  I found the address and determined it was in Puxi.  Puxi is on the west side of the river in Shanghai. They call that area the old part of the city.  It's a 45 minute or longer taxi ride from our house.  I also saw on their website (it was in English) that they only repair instruments on Wednesdays.  Perfect timing.  I got up this morning and decided to head out. I had my metro maps and instructions, my shuttle bus schedule, the address and phone number. What could go wrong?  I made the shuttle bus and got to the metro.  Got on the metro fine and was able to switch lines on the west side of the river.  Once I came up out of the metro station, I was lost. It wasn't close by and I didn't see any taxis.  I remembered seeing the map and it didn't seem that far. The only details that I remembered was that it's NW of the station.  I opened up my compass app on the phone and started walking NW, just like a boy scout, :-).  After about 20 minutes in the sun, heat, pollution (Puxi is the worst) and humidity, I finally found the road. I even found the block but no store. I walked 3 blocks in both directions twice.  By this point, I was really getting hot and my back was killing me hauling this trumpet on my back. I decided to call Greg and tell him that I was lost. He was in a meeting and wasn't able to help much.  Finally, I gave up and started asking people that didn't speak English. I finally found someone that pointed me another 2 blocks past where I was walking. I found it and was so excited!! I went into the store and showed them the trumpet. I demonstrated the noise that the two valves were making.  The guy took the trumpet out of my hand and screwed the valve a quarter turn and it was fixed. Boy did I feel stupid. I told him that the music teacher said it had a problem.  They looked at it again and said it was fine.  I really need to learn something about trumpets.  I played clarinet.  Feeling really embarrassed and extremely hot, I left the store and headed home.  I decided to stop off at the Super Brand Mall and have McDonald's for lunch.  I haven't had any fast food in over a month. It was go good!  After metro and taxi ride home, I make it back in 4 hrs.  Trumpet fixed so I was successful!  At least I was told it's fixed.