We weren't Shanghai'd, we came willingly and are having a blast! Adrian and I arrived in Shanghai two days ago and have enjoyed the assistance of a private tour guide for most of our stay thus far. We did adventure for a full day on our own and felt pretty proud of ourselves.
Our tour guide, Cindy, picked us up at the airport and showed us around the city a bit then got us squared away at our hotel. Yesterday, we successfully navigated the Metro system and ran a few "errands" which included booking a hotel room for later in our trip near the ferry terminal (where we'll take the ferry to Japan). We found a hotel with a very nice man who spoke no english at all. With a combination of sign language (hands together by our ears for 'sleeping'), pointing to "I'd like to make a reservation" in the phrasebook, and a calendar, we got a tour of the rooms, picked the one we want and made a reservation. We paid $22 for a very nice room with a TV and computer. Yesterday we ate lunch for less than a dollar. We are lovin' the cost of living around here. Our four star hotel stay downtown for the past two nights cost $70/night and included breakfast.
(The breakfast buffet certainly provided a lot of interesting options...this morning I had some green glop! Literally. It tasted like green tea and had the consistency of mochi which is a very glutinous (super sticky) rice. It looked like something from a Dr. Seuss book.)
Today, our tour guide (who goes by Cindy) picked us up at 9am and took us around the Yu Yuan Garden, a fresh water pearls wholesale shop where they cracked open an oyster and showed us 17 pearls inside, a silk museum (on how silk is made) and then to the Shanghai Museum. It worked out well to have her book our tix for the Yu Yuan Garden and the Shanghai museum in advance. There were long lines at both and we slid right in. The other two stops were lures for tourists to get us to buy Shanghai products, but it was fun to see how silk is made! I did purchase some pearls. They were such a deal! The Yu Yuan Garden is a 400 year old (after being re-built several times) home and garden built by a rich retired man. He was a treasurer in Chongqing and took his big money to Shanghai when he retired to built a little world he could be ruler in. It was a fun place to tour traditional chinese buildings and gardens.
We did a one hour speed tour with head sets in the Shanghai Museum. Adrian is really good at speed museum visiting. We covered a lot of it. There were bronze cast cooking items, bowls, wine goblets, etc from 1100 B.C. I can't even comprehend how long ago that was. It's a really good museum. I recommend it to those of you heading to Shanghai in the future.
Right now, we have boarded our Yangtze River Boat cruise. We're about to pull away from Shanghai for 9 days of the river life. We've got a great room with a little balcony. We plan to do a lot of sightseeing and relaxing. Tomorrow morning there are tai chi lessons before breakfast and chinese bartering lessons after breakfast. We've had one very unsuccessful attempt at bartering so far. We can use the lessons.
All in all, we are doing great in China and looking forward to more adventures.
Great you enjoyed Shanghai with your private tour guide. An expert guide saves your time and offers good value. Yuyuan Garden is very nice, small but with lots of things to see. Delicate, in my opinion. Hope you following trips in China were as good.
ReplyDeleteOurExplorer - World Tour Guide
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