Day Two in Shanghai

We decided to treat ourselves to the Hotel breakfast. We probably shouldn’t have done that as it was expensive and the coffee tasted like it had been flavoured with sweetened condensed milk. Never mind. We were fed and wouldn’t need another meal for hours. Our plan was to attempt the tour buses again.  We’d bought a 48 hour ticket so why not? First stop- the Jade Temple. Never try to do anything in a hurry. You’ve got to allow for long waits, traffic delays, and unexpected changes to scheduled timetables.  The people in red uniforms who belong to the bus company pretending they actually know what time buses leave are actually guessing. A perfect example was when we’d just settled down to a 20 minute wait, opened our newly acquired very dry and extremely crumbly almond biscuits , and the bus arrived! A quick scramble repacking everything…and we were away!

The Jade Temple was worth the visit. The story of the jade Buddha and it’s arrival in Shanghai was worth hearing. And what a beautiful Buddah. This was my favourite. S liked the laughing Buddha who was pretty cool as well. We made a particular effort to rub his tummy. Next to him was the most intricately carved tree root I have ever seen. The monks sold some nice stuff including hand and palm paintings (ie: no brushes). We were tempted but kept thinking about how much stuff we actually had to take around Europe. We are at the start of our journey, after all.

We missed the bus by 1 minute (it was early) so had to wait a further 40 minutes for ride. We eventually found the tea house upstairs where we chose iced lemon tea. Very nice.

Next stop was the Shanghai Museum. An impressive building and once you know what it looks like, it’s easy to spot. It took us about half an hour to clear security. Once inside we opted to work our way down the four storeys rather than the other way around. This museum showed stuff and didn’t give a lot of insight into history. From that perspective it was disappointing. A couple of the best exhibits for me were a beautifully formed pot dating back to 5000BC, and a calligraphy drawing of a man riding a carp. It reminded me of taniwha and Loch Ness stories. There were a number of calligraphy scrolls which we found interesting as well.

Next stop was Shanghai Station to pick up our glasses. We’re very happy with our purchases. I especially like the fact I now own some long distance sunglasses. Perfect. We decided then it might be an idea to head back to the hotel, freshen up and go on the River Cruise. By the time we got back to The Bund, we realised that we wouldn’t have any time to get back to the hotel at all! (This is what I referred to earlier…endless traffic jams, queues on the Metro while bags are checked through security mistaken timetables, and delays).

Wow! The 6.30pm cruise was definitely worth the wait. We got views up and down the river as the sun went down and the red moon came up. The moon, by the way, was often hidden by the tall buildings and you needed to be quick to glimpse it through the gaps. There must be some kind of competition between the body corporates as to who can make the most spectacular light display. We couldn’t decide who should win. I think I took about 1000 photos and a video or two.

Later we walked across to an area where we had been told were some nice restaurants. Hmmm. This took longer than we thought it would. Instead we were among hundreds of pearl and souvenir shops. We did pass a nice little bag shop (among hundreds as well) that had the perfect wheel-on bag for carrying onto the plane. I bargained the man down to a good price and he then told us of a great restaurant not far from his shop. It was too. After being well fed on Shanghai dumplings, hot beans with mince, fried rice, watermelon juice and a beer, we treated ourselves to a taxi. We should have used these more. It was only 15yen all the way home. Fantastic. It did make the tuktuk on day one seem very expensive…but it really was just another experience.