Shanghai - Day 1

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Here is some information on Shanghai from Wikipedia and Travel China Guide.

Flight to Shanghai

It seems the word got out about my abuse of the First Class lounge privileges in Xi’an. When I walked in to the lounge in Guilin, they looked at my pass, then at me, and made clear that I was entitled to only a single soda and snack.

Our tour guide in Shanghai was Wu, a middle aged women that we never really learned much about personally. Wu was conservative in her behavior like Rose, but seemed to be a little sneakier in her behavior. She honestly didn’t seem all that interested in keeping to the tour schedule…pretty much showing disdain for most of the sights. Made us all wonder why she was a tour guide in the first place.

We stayed at the Hua Ting Hotel & Towers, which used to be the old Sheraton Hotel. It is a nice hotel, but is far away from the downtown and tourist sites. Sheraton built a new hotel closer to downtown.

Xin Tian Di

Travel China Guide Information

For being the only site to officially visit today, this was a rather disappointing place. This is an old neighborhood that was demolished and rebuilt using the old stones and door openings into a modern hangout spot. It reminded all of us of a classic European café neighborhood.

Wu originally tried to have us walk through the area in 10 minutes, but we convinced her to stay a little longer and we all got an ice cream and took in the ambiance.

After we were done visiting we asked Wu what else we could do…since nothing else was scheduled for the day. She suggested we go to a Silk Factory to see how silk was taken from cocoon to finished silk. This was actually kind of cool. Of course, there were all kinds of nice things to buy hear, including silk comforters and bedware and embroidered paintings.

Shanghai Grand Theatre

Theatre Website

The evening was technically a “plan your own event” night, but we all decided to get some tickets to see an Acrobatics Show, since it was supposed to be really good. It was awesome. There were many “Oh my God!” moments. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died right as the show was starting, so I didn’t really get any photos of the show. Who knew what could be done with 80 plates, 10 bowls, 8 chairs, 6 blocks of wood, 4 motorcycles, 3 poles, 2 tables, 1 mug, 1 spoon, 1 bicycle, and 1 giant metal sphere. Luckily, they had a DVD available of the show, which I made sure to purchase.

Shanghai is definitely a western city. Before going to the Acrobat Show, we decided to go non-Chinese for dinner, and ended up at Pizza Hut. Let me tell you, this was the swankiest Pizza Hut I have ever been in. It had a hostess, wine list, and really nice eating accommodations. I doubt we will see this in the US any time soon.

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