March 12, 2011, Saturday in Shanghai
Dear Friends and Family,
This is our last full day in Shanghai. At one point in the week when we were a little stressed we were wishing that we had planned to come home right after Steve finished teaching. Today we’re glad we had the chance to catch our breath and play tourist for a day.
We left the hotel about 10:00 and got a cab down to the “Bund,” the area of buildings built in the late 19th and early 20th century by foreign investors in China. The Bund borders the waterway that makes possible the fact that this is a deep harbor port, though not really on the sea. It has an extensive promenade that afford perfect viewing of the port activity. Across the waterway one can see exotically shaped buildings, several skyscrapers which were new since we were here in 2006. We went to this area to nail down a restaurant for dinner. It was also to this area that we came on Wednesday night to “M” on the Bund, a restaurant that we had been to when we were here in 2006 that boasts one of the best views of the waterway and the best service in town. It met all of our expectations. But we wanted to do something else, so we were relying on our Frommer’s guide and it also didn’t disappoint. We found a 7th floor restaurant in a nearby building overlooking the waterway for brunch. We have had a taste for real breakfast food all week and we were able to get some eggs benedict there that were fabulous. In the same building is the restaurant that is purported to be the best in Shanghai. We went in to see the menu and realized that it would be about $100 per person. A little steep. But at the same time we found that their bar area hosted an “early bird” dinner special for about $35 for 3 courses. The view wasn’t quite as spectacular, but with the same chef and one third the money, we decided to make a reservation.
Then we started walking. We walked over territory that we thought we had treaded before, headed for the People’s Park. As we got closer the density of humanity increased. It’s just hard to describe the press of people on the sidewalks. Getting to the People’s Park was a great relief because there were many less people there. We had walked over a mile so we sat down and made a plan for the rest of the day. The first choice was to go to the Shanghai museum. It’s free and said to be one of the best 3 museums in China. The best part as far as we were concerned was that they had a good bit of information about each of the exhibits posted in English. It is a four floor building that has four exhibit rooms on each floor. The center has a spectacular stairway with gilded wrought iron work lining the stairs. Fortunately there were escalators as well. We decided to see just the fourth floor where there were exhibits of furniture from the Ming and Qing dynasties along with a history of currency that included the fascinating exhibit of money that was used on the ancient Silk Road.
It was a lovely day, about 65 degrees, and we wanted to be outside, so we headed to the French Concession, an area of very interesting old buildings that are mixed with new that has become an “in” spot for restaurants and shopping. Curiously, in amongst the old buildings is the place where the Communist party had its first meeting in the 1920’s. There’s a museum there that we had visited before that extols all of the virtues of the Communist takeover that sits alongside these new glitzy shopping areas of huge capitalist expansion. On our way there we walked through one park that was the chosen spot for two different brides to be photographed. Their dresses were something else—very princess like and totally white, which is interesting since the traditional Chinese wedding dress is red. We sat down in one of the many open air cafes to have mid afternoon coffee and watch the world go by. There were lots more (ok, not a lot, but more) westerners there than in the area around Fudan University where we have been all week.
We then decided to try and find an area of art studios and restaurants that were described as the Shanghai equivalent of New York’s Soho district. It took some doing, but we managed to get there and enjoy it with about 2,000 other Chinese tourists. On the way back we took in Fu Xing Park which had a ton of really cool stuff for little kids. At one point there was a little pond on which there were huge balloon type conveyances that had a hollowed out center. Little children, and I mean little ones, were inside of these bubbles and propelled themselves over the water by running inside the bubble. Ok. That may not be very precise, but they kids were having a ball. Further on there were amusement kinds of rides and at the north part of the park there was an oval on which a little older kids were roller blading. Oh, yes, and on the other side there was a great group of older couples doing a waltz to recorded music. Lots of fun for a Saturday afternoon.
So everything thus far had gone very smoothly, and we thought it was time to get back to the Bund for dinner. We were very far from the Bund then, so we thought a taxi was in order. Oh my goodness. This was the moment of terror for the day. First of all getting a taxi was a problem. Everyone else had the idea at the same time. When we finally found one we gave the driver the address in Chinese characters which we had used before. He started out in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. We waited for several blocks thinking he knew a quicker way over more traveled streets to go, but after five minutes and going in the absolutely opposite direction of the way we knew we should be going, we both just yelled and Steve pointed to the left. We then gave him the note with the Chinese characters again, and he seemed to get it, though we couldn’t be sure. With no Chinese at all, we were at the total mercy of the driver, and he could have taken us to outer Mongolia. But once he knew that we knew we were going wrong, he seemed to get back on course. Still, I was very relieved to get out of that taxi where we knew we should be.
Dinner was exquisite. Steve had the set menu of three courses—pea soup, red snapper and chocolate cake for dessert. I order the snapper but with an asparagus salad to start. We had a lovely view of the waterway and lingered for more than 2 hours over dinner. We had a similar taxi experience on the way home with the driver going in the opposite direction of the way we were supposed to go as we started out, but once again, once we protested he seemed to get it right. I’m glad we just have one more taxi ride and that’s to the airport. You’d think that they could get that right.
So we’ve done some packing and are relaxing now. Tomorrow our host will come and take us to lunch before we go to the airport. We’ve been upgraded to business class on the way home and we are ever so grateful for that. We should be able to sleep some and arrive in Chicago Sunday night without too much trouble! Right now we are also grateful that our travel does not take us through Japan. We are finally seeing images of what happened there on Chinese TV.
We’ll be on our way home shortly. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. We are looking forward to home and are very thankful for your prayers.
Love, jan
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