Shanghai

Giselle our bad guide arrived late and started out quite annoyed. It was easy to see she did not want to be there. We took a bus to the Jade Budda pagoda, quite tacky. I find it embarrassing to be there taking pictures with a Lloyd guide talking while people are trying to quietly pray. The jade Budda, a 19th century gorgeous jade statues coming from India was worth the trip, really beautiful.
After we went to a silk laboratory. It was interesting to see how the whole silk making process works and at the end Robbie bought 2 duvets stuffed with silk. Meh
After this we went to see the Yuyuan Mandarin Garden in the old city. In all honesty I was a bit disappointed. It must have been lovely once but now it's a shambles, in full restructuring, with too many people, too much noise. It's supposed to be a place of peace. It's not.
After the guide gave us 45 minutes to walk around in the old city but we just sat in a toy store and checked our flight in. Oh and we bought Oleg a huge umbrella shaped like a katana. What on earth are we going to do with it?
Fur lunch Gisella took us upstairs in a very dirty smelly place full of screaming Indians, African tourists and Chinese. We sat and waited and waited and finally they brought us the worst lunch we ever had. Everything was deep fried in a smelly heavy grease, looked very old, cheap meats, disgusting mushrooms, frozen peas and corn. Oleg are something and threw up. We were all so upset that when Gisella came back we asked her and the waiter how much this lunch had cost. We looked in the menu and found none of the plates that were brought us. A waiter who spoke a little English told us that he didn't know, to ask his boss Because the food was not from the restaurant. What happened was that the agency day us there and then ordered rank junk from who knows where. We were quite upset.
After lunch we went to the Shanghai museum, beautiful. I was particularly impressed with the ancient pottery and statuettes, the paintings and ancient jades.. Worth the 2 hours we spent there.
When we left, Gisella have 400 RMB each to the people who took the train to Shanghai and asked us again to accept the 100 RMB but I replied curtly that we were waiting to get home.
The guide wanted to leave us at the French concession since she was angry that we made her arrive at 8 am instead of 9, but we reminded her that the program provided for a walk through the area. The French Concession was literally an area that was given to the French in concession in the 19th century and now is a big tourist trap full of expensive shops and bars. I looked for a teahouse fur Oleg but there was none. Finally I left the quarter and went back to the main Street and immediately found a funny tea House where I got a delicious cold Jasmine tea with coconut milk.
We took the subway and went back to the game market with Half the group while the other half took a taxi. We walked around, Robbie got a bit upset because the phone he bought yesterday was a knock-off. It's a nice phone and I am sure he will enjoy it and paid a quarter for it..
We just got some T shorts for Oleg, a hoodie and track pants and left. I wanted to go back to old Town, but I was squashed so we went to Pudong and went again to a hot pot place. It actually was delicious but I definitely ate too much and too spicy. Half the group took a tuktuk, we jumped into a taxi and went to our hotel, packed our cases for an early morning departure.Read more