Holiday Inn Downtown Shanghai

We got up early for breakfast again, and it was even better than last time. Highlights: Congee (rice gruel), Asian pears, eggs, cereal, and so on. Then we went back to sleep until noon. We had lunch at a hotel with classic food from the area, including bamboo! and went on the four-hour bus drive to Shanghai. Once there, we went shopping around an upscale area, then had dinner. The main event of the day was Era, a cirque du soleil feel show that was amazing. There were balancing acts, contorti...

We went to the Shanghai Museum today! It was a three story building with a different room for each theme. There was the bronze, ceramics, painting, calligraphy, furniture, currency, stamps, and jade. I really enjoyed looking at everything, and the gift shop was nice and well priced as well. After the museum we went to a pearl factory. We had a display of pulling pearls from the clams, then we shopped. I got a couple things, but mostly enjoyed looking at all the pearl stuff. They have pearl po...

We stared our day by heading to the aquarium. To get there we took the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, which was hilarious. It was a dinky tunnel with neon lights and wooshing sounds. Then we walked from there, past the pearl tower into the aquarium. The aquarium was awesome, with more fish than I have ever seen as well as seals and penguins. From there, we went to Hooters, which was funny. People got shirts and we hung out with the girls. Then, we took the subway back to the hotel, walked through p...

After checking in at the hotel, I gave Andy (friend of a friend, Greg) a call. Andy and I have met probably a total of two times, so he thought it would be easier if I met him at his place of work. He sent me the address in Chinese which I gave to the taxi driver, so getting there was no problem. The view from Andy's office window was a spectacular view to a park. I do not know how he can get any work done. Unfortunately for Andy, he said he spends a great deal of time traveling within China ...

During the bus tour, I became friends with a pharmacist from Malaysia, Choe. Choe was on a business trip and had one free day, so he decided to take a tour of the Gardens in Suzhou. He became very interested in my argument with the tour guide on which garden was the best in Suzhou, Humble Administrator's or the Linger In Garden. I showed him the passage in the "Lonely Planet Guide to China", which stated the best was the Humble Administrator's Garden. He pointed out that you can not trust wha...

This morning I showed up at the designated hotel to be picked up by a bus for a tour of the city, Hangzhou. I started to get concern because I saw no one waiting in the lobby for the tour like yesterday. I was getting ready to call the travel agency, when a representative of the tour company approached me. Unfortunately because there were not enough people signed up for the tour, they cancelled it, but they offered to send me on a city tour of Shanghai as a substitute. Thanks to Andy and Choe...

I was to meet with Andy and his wife, Palis, for dinner at 6. I remembered that Andy said his office was next to the JinJiang Park. The fact that I was able to guide Choe around the Metro system, I was confident I could go anywhere in Shanghai with no assistance, so I decided to Metro to Andy's office instead of taking a taxi. BIG MISTAKE. I rode the Metro all the way to JinJiang Park, when I exited I realized I was in the Shanghai suburbs. I consulted my Metro map and saw there was a Jing'a...