Day Next

Well rested and ready to take on the world!

As it turned out being rested was quite important as we left the hotel at 7:50 am and finally were allowed to get back to the hotel at 10:30 pm. There was no concession for any residual jet lag. Off we went to the Yu Gardens. Yes, Ann was in heaven visiting her first real Asian contemplative garden. She found it difficult to achieve calm, though, in the mass of humanity in the various “rooms” of this magnificent former private garden in the center of Shanghai.

Then we were taken to a Silk Museum AKA silk retail store where we learned much more about the silk process that I ever knew or wanted to know. So, I left the museum and walked the streets somewhere in Shanghai while others shopped silk. That was fascinating going into shops of the other, non tourist, dingy, dirty Shanghai.

Then on to the Shanghai Museum. I guess I was not into a “museum” mode yesterday because having a beer in the closed restaurant on the first floor was the highlight of the visit there. That is not to say it wasn’t a magnificent, modern museum with a wealth of Chinese history. So, I wandered out to the adjacent Peoples Square while waiting for the museum visit to end – fully beered. The adjacent square is, I am told, is one of the most beautiful modern examples of feng shui. Now if I just knew what feng shui actually meant…

We were allowed to get back to the hotel for a quick hour before we headed out to dinner and the Shanghai Acrobatic show. Friday night on the byways of Shanghai was an adventure in itself. A 45 minute ride took us 90 minutes but the highlight was having our bus make a u turn in front of an ambulance with its lights and siren on. But it just seemed so natural in the helter-skelter world of the Shanghai traffic of pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes and vehicles all doing a chaotic but choreographed dance. The scary thing is we are not even in Beijing yet where the traffic is supposedly “bad”.

The Shanghai Acrobats were just amazing but there was one problem. On our second day with a full day of being on the go and having dinner prior, the sight of our group in the first three rows center of the balcony was oddly hilarious. As I scanned around our group, they looked like bobble head dolls. Heads were dropping as sleep overcame the poor souls but then their heads bobbed up again as that startled them awake; then it would start all over again. I was not immune to this so when we arrived at the hotel I do not remember going to bed – only waking up in the morning.

Thought for the day: The only thing to contemplate in the Yu Garden was why the majority of the billion Chinese were there with us.