Day 69 – March 25 – Shanghai, China

Our day started early with Fred getting up before 6:00am.  But it was nice to have a leisurely morning to get ready for our second day in Shanghai.  The weather is a bit cooler but the skies are bluer.

Today will be a shorter day since we spent almost 11 hours touring yesterday.   Our first stop was the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall.  It is one of the buildings in the People’s Park, the former British Concession race track area.  It has amazing scale models of Shanghai including one that has the entire area shown in miniature.  You had to walk around it from a platform so you could see all the different areas of Shanghai.

They also had an IMAX type presentation of the major areas which was very interested.  On one of the floors they had collections of photographs of Shanghai in different eras.  Some of the most interesting were the ones of before and now with photos of buildings as they were and as they are now.

Our next visit was to the Yuyan Gardens and Bazaar.  This area is still one of the older, more traditional areas in Shanghai and a popular tourist spot for both foreign and Chinese visitors.  We had visited this area when we were in Shanghai in 2006, but it was with a group and we didn’t get to really see things well.  Wendy took us through slowly and we got a lot more information about the garden and its buildings that we had.  Some of the spring plants are just beginning to flower, including the magnolia and camellias.  It wasn’t too crowded so we just took our time looking at all of the different areas of garden and the different pavilions.  After the visit to the Garden, it was time for lunch.

Today we had lunch at a Din sum restaurant, Lv Po Lan (Green Ripple Restaurant).  There was so much food!  Wendy again did a great job of selecting from the menu to give us a taste of Shanghai-style din sum and other Shanghai specialties.  The appetizer was smoked fish, but it was not like any smoked fish we have every tried before.  The fish was smoked crispy in a sweet sauce that probably had soy and honey in it.  It was a surprise how good it was.  Jan was thinking of other smoked fish she had tried and didn’t think she would like it, but she did.  Then we had a selection of different kinds of din sum, steamed dumplings with pork, with shrimp, with vegetables, other types of small din sum with dates, eggs, and other things.   Plus we had a bowl of steamed vegetables and a rich, rich soup of crab and tofu.  We had so much we took some back to the ship with us.

After lunch, we walked around the area outside of the Yuyuan Bazaar to find a couple of things we had been looking for.  Fred found the hand microscope he needed to be able to read the fine print in his Wall Street journal.  Jan found a particular gift she wanted.  After all the walking around, Fred’s feet were telling us it was time to return to the ship.

We really, really enjoyed Wendy.  She was the best guide we have had so far.  The way she rearranged our schedules and the flexibility she gave us were only part of the reason we like her so much.  We really enjoyed our conversations with her about many topics and felt we were leaving a friend in Shanghai instead of just a good guide.

We were back to the ship by 2:00pm, which was earlier than planned but with the long day yesterday, it was just the right amount of time.  And, I’m sure Wendy and our driver were glad for a little earlier stop to the day.

Shanghai again proved to be one of our favorite cities and there is always more to see there.