Aroung Shanghai
Trip Start
Mar 29, 2007
1
12
14
Trip End
Apr 13, 2007
Shanghai, China
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Our morning tour started with a visit to Yu Yuan Garden, a traditional Chinese rock garden built by a very nice son for his parents. It was very pretty and also quite crowded with a large group of Korean tourists and a bunch of smaller tour groups, so it was hard for me to take good pictures.
We then visited the Jade Buddha temple which houses, you guessed it, a jade Buddha statue. The jade Buddha is made from one single piece of white jade. He is about 6 feet tall, weighing 3 tonnes, and is quite beautiful. The temple location was once a secret
Yu Yuan Garden
. The jade Buddha temple was originally at a different location but the monks moved it in order to protect the jade Buddha during the 1911 uprising.Today is the day before a very important day to the Buddhists, and they have started their celebrations a bit early, so this temple was crowded but as a special treat we got to see a lot of chanting monks. I really wanted to take a picture but thought it might be rude as they were in a temple, so instead I took pictures of the Buddhas around them and tried to craftily sneak a few of the chanting monks into my photo. It didn't work out.
From there we went for a dim sum lunch. There were ten dishes for Ally and I because our guide, Win, didn't join us for lunch. So after our lunch there were a lot of leftovers, and Win thought we didn't enjoy our lunch. I actually really enjoyed most of the food but I am not a big eater and neither is Ally so I guess it looked like we didn't enjoy the meal.
After lunch we were set free on the city. We started with a walk down to the Bund, which is supposed to be the most beautiful bay in Asia. It wasn't that fantastic but I'd like to see it at night as this city really lights up after dark, so it could make a big difference along the water. We walked along the waterfront until we found the ice cream I was craving. From there we decided to do some shopping and walked around until we found a street mall. The shopping wasn't fantastic but Ally picked up a couple gifts. We found a massage for Ally - about $10 for an hour, and a facial for me - about the same, and after our treatments had a relaxing evening in our hotel. I think tomorrow I will try out Ally's strong-handed masseuse.
