Tea and Shanghai

Due to the imminent arrival of typhoon Beninca, our itinerary has been adjusted as the Chinese government has ordered all outdoor activities to cease. This is sad as it is the Moon Festival right now and a National Holiday. Several of our group are very disappointed as they were planning on going to Shanghai Disneyland, but that has also been ordered to close. All flights for today and tomorrow have been cancelled. Fingers crossed that things settle for our flight on Tuesday.
So last night we did a boat cruise at Hangzhou which was scheduled for today. None of us had any idea there was a typhoon on its way, however I should not be surprised I guess.
Today we started at a tea plantation which has been one of the things I’ve been really looking forward to.
We did a tea ceremony and I wasn’t surprised to find myself stocking up on a couple of tins of green tea 😂 (well it’s very good for you so it would’ve been foolish not to take advantage of the very good prices).
The trip to Shanghai afterwards was long but visually fascinating. The endless rows of high rise apartments, as far as the eye can see is unbelievable.
The sky darkened as the day went on but Liam & I were fortunate enough to explore Downtown Shanghai this evening before the real rain started. We skipped the option of an acrobatics show and had a fabulous adventure with one or two locals (the word “million” should be in that statement).
Sadly the scheduled light show was cancelled but holy moly it was still an impressive sight. We couldn’t see the top of Shanghai Tower as it was up in the clouds and the iconic Pearl Tower was majestic. The city was absolutely bustling with such a positive vibe. I absolutely loved it!! We were also lucky enough to find a fabulous little restaurant and had the best meal of the trip so far. Liam had the duck and I had “company residue” - a weird translation of chicken and brisket with rice 😂😂. Liam somehow also accidentally ordered some massive pizza sized fried oyster dish, but we were so full that we had to take it back to the hotel. Today was my favourite “non-historically significant” day by far!!Read more