We really crashed the night before and we were well on
our way to catching up on our sleep when, at 3:21am, the phone rang with
question about a customer’s bill for our latest event. The problem was that after the call, it was
impossible to go back to sleep so we were up much too early.
First thing in the morning, the Asst Manager took us to
the highest library in the world on the 59th floor and then thru a
“secret” door out onto the roof – what a neat sight from up there.
Then I spent sometime in the Executive Lounge with the
Manager trying to find a way to get tour blog.
It seems that going into web design for our blog is blocked because it
is part of Google, which is blocked here.
Also blocked is Facebook and Twitter!!
We met our guide and driver at 9:30am and off we
went. One of the amazing things about
this city, which is the largest in the word, 3 times the size of New York and
10 times Chicago is its lack of traffic.
They have great wide main streets but hardly any automobiles. It is so neat to go out on the streets at 9am
and no hear traffic.
We first went to the Shanghai Museum, the Jade Buhhda
Temple, and a silk factory and then it was time for lunch. At the Museum, we saw amazing works of porcelain
from 13 bc as well as bronze works from as early as 6th century bc –
what a great museum. The Jade Buhhda
Temple is one of the most famous Buddha religious temples in Shanghai. At the silk factory, we saw how silk is
actually made into materials. Their
biggest product that they were displaying were comforters for beds and of course
they wanted us to buy one – we didn’t.
We then had a traditional Chinese lunch at a nice restaurant
before going to an area call The French Concession. This is an area made up of old streets with
a lot of shops and restaurants. Then it
was onto the YuYun Gardens were 400 years ago a very wealthy politician built
these amazing gardens for himself.
After that we went to the YuYan Tourist Mart which is a
huge market that serves over 37 million Chinese and overseas visitors each
year. Basically, there are lost places
to eat and lots and lots of places to shop!!
We spent a couple of hours there, ate dinner and then met out guide and driver
to go on a night-time river cruise.
It was perfect weather for a boat cruise and it was a lot
of fun. This is an amazing city and everything
along the waterfront is lit up at night – it makes quite a sight.
The costs of items is very interesting. There is not a lot of tipping – nothing to
cab drivers and restaurant workers.
Also, food is very cheap. Our
dinner tonight cost about $5.00. But
then other things are very expensive. Our
driver and guide were excited when they say my new iPhone 6 the first day. Today, they announced pre-sales in China and
a new iPhone 6 will cost $1,124 - and
they are made here! I only paid $299
plus received a $200 trade-in.
This is such an interesting brand new city that we are
seeing. Most of the major sections were
built after 1990. Our guide said that Shanghai
has all of the money and Beijing has all of the power so it will be interesting
visiting both of them.
After the cruise, we were taken back to the hotel where
we went up the Executive Lounge for snacks and then back to the room where we
went to sleep -this time making it up until 9:0pm.
 |
| Lunch was good |
 |
| Buddas |
 |
| A great lunch |
 |
| The Gardens |
 |
| Skyline from the river cruise |
No comments:
Post a Comment