SHANGHAI

The bus ride to Shanghai was realitively uneventful except for the American style traffic jam (the first we experienced) with vehicles slowed to a crawl for a mile or so.

The first place we visited was the Bund with a view of the famous Shanghai skyline across the river. Then they let us loose for a couple hours of shopping on the Nanjing Road. Melinda and I hung out with Tom and Elena for a while. Melinda found a bookstore and Tom went wandering around while Elena and I sat amidst the Sunday shopping crowd of locals and just watched people. Then we wandered back to where we were to meet up to head to the Chinese Acrobat show and then dinner. The show was fabulous, with jugglers, magic, contortionists, plate spinners, balancing acts, gymnastics and ended with five motorcyclists riding around in a big steel cage! We weren't allowed to take photos though.

BUND PHOTOS HERE

NANJING ROAD PHOTOS HERE

Ironically, in Shanghai, the home of China's most famous high-rise buildings, our hotel was not the usual high rise affair. Instead it was a sweet place called the General Hotel because it had once been the headquarters of a military general.

HOTEL PHOTOS HERE

The last day in Shanghai we went to the Shanghai Museum. It was a wonderful museum and we wandered around for several hours on our own. Melinda and I visited the section on Ethnic Minorities, Chinese furniture (Ming and Qing dynasties) and calligraphy. I forgot my camera for this part but I did learn the difference between Ming and Qing dynasty furniture. Ming is much lighter with cleaner lines. As they moved into the Qing dynasty the furniture got much heavier and darker with more ornate carving and inlay of semi-precious stones. I definitely liked the Ming furniture better. The jade section was temporarily closed and we didn't even get to the painting. I would have been happy to spend all day there (instead of 'shopping' on the Nanjing Road.)

In the afternoon Melinda and I went for our last walk. There was an area near our hotel that was much like the hutongs of Beijing (without the pedicab tours!) We bought a bag of hot roasted chestnuts from a guy pushing a cart where he made and sold them. It's interesting how they do it. There is a small charcoal stove with a large wok mounted above it. The wok is filled with some sort of tiny black pebbles that are heated by the stove. The raw chestnuts are mixed in with the pebbles and stirred around until the roasting is complete and then they are scooped out with a sieve with holes large enough to let the rocks through. They tasted great and it was fun buying them. Communicating is not so much pressure (the kind I felt in Mexico and Italy) when neither of you expects the other one to know his language. You just work at it until you figure it out!

SHANGHAI PHOTOS HERE

Our last night in Shanghai was a dinner on our own. Tom, Elena, Melinda, and I took a cab to a vegetarian restaurant where the four of us had plenty to eat for only 81 yuan (about $10) and then topped it off with a soft-serve ice cream cone from the McDonalds down the street.

If you've made it this far and want to see other batches of photos that didn't fit into the body of the blog, please click on the links to the right. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed your tour!