Getting to know Shanghai
We had a good nights sleep on the much better beds in Shanghai. The breakfast buffet at this hotel had quite the array of food. In fact, I didn’t even have “breakfast” as my meal consisted of dinner items. I had beef tenderloin, chicken, creamy cauliflower and roasted potatoes. There were breakfast items on the buffet, but once I saw the cauliflower, I decided to go the dinner route. It was delicious.
Our 9:00 meet time turned into 9:20 when we were once again told that we needed our passports after we were already downstairs. Our first stop for the day was at the Jade Buddha Temple. It was raining pretty steady when we got out of the bus, and a very smart business man was selling umbrellas as we got out. I had brought mine from home, but several members of the group bought one.
Our tour guide, Heidi, took us through the various temple buildings and explained the different Buddha statues. The temple was busy with worshipers and tourists and it was hard to hear our tour guide over the noise of the tourists and monks chatting, but we did find it interesting for a certain dollar amount (donation per year) you could pray in the Jade Buddha Temple and that it was not open to all.
We left the Jade Buddha Temple and headed to the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is the 8th tallest building in the world. We went all the way up to the 100th floor, but only saw the clouds and a couple of antennas sticking out of the clouds from neighboring buildings. We roamed the observation area long enough for the clouds to break some and see some glimpses of the city and the Oriental Pearl Tower. I bet the views on a clear day are amazing.
Next on the agenda was lunch. We ate another traditional Chinese lunch. The meal was good, but not as good as the day before. We weren’t sure lunch was over because watermelon slices weren’t served. I think every Chinese meal we’ve had ended with watermelon. Lysette asked the staff and found that lunch truly was over as they would not be serving watermelon.
It was still raining when we were done eating, but we were taken to the French Concession area of Shanghai. This is a trendy area with good restaurants and night life, but all we did was follow our tour guide around in the rain. It really was a lackluster experience.
We made one other stop on our guided tour today (although I think the tour guide spent more time on her cell phone then talking with us – we are still missing Forest) to another market area. We were given 45 minutes to walk through the crowded skinny streets and alleys. I did not enjoy this as much as the Muslim Quarter in Xian.
We got back to the hotel around 5:00p.m. and Becky organized our evening activity of going to a speak easy. A speak easy was from the prohibition era where bars were disguised as other business and there was a trick to get in (much like the Safe House in Milwaukee). We were set to meet at 7:30 in the lobby to go. After a quick shower Tom, Leah, Sheila, and I walked a block to a pizza restaurant that we had driven by earlier. Tom and I shared a white sauced mushroom pizza. It had the super thin crust and was really good.
We all met back in the lobby and 12 of us took 3 cabs to the speak easy. We thought we were the last to arrive so Tom, Leah, Lysette and I went into the entrance of what was a “bar supply store” and moved the sliding bookcase to go upstairs to the bar. We didn’t see the rest of our group and was wondering what had happened to them, but then I looked out the window and saw them standing on the street below. Leah went out to tell them we were already inside.
The bar itself was actually pretty small, but we had a great time hanging out and drinking. It was after 11:00 when we decided to go back to the hotel. I had almost forgotten we were in China when we were in the bar as there were many tourists and not as many locals. We got back to the hotel and decided to have one more drink. I ordered a strawberry daiquiri that looked nothing like a daiquiri. It was clear liquid non-blended drink over ice. It was ok, but certainly not what I was expecting. I think a fun night was had by all.
