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Published: April 16th 2016
Our vacation is slowly coming to an end. This morning we bid good bye to several new friends who left on their journey home or to Hong Kong. We however stayed in Shanghai for our Free Day.
We got up unnecessarily early, about 8 AM so that we could head to the lobby and say our last good byes to those folks leaving ahead of us. I sent our emails addresses last night and I was releived to know that the group did get them. So now we have the ability to stay in touch.
Rick and I headed off to breakfast and were met there by John, Dick and Mike. Mike had gotten up real early and took a swim in the hotel pool. We chatted and enjoyed our last buffet breakfast. We each joked how our wives were going to be preparing our buffet breakfasts all next week....NOT. Back to simple cereal or, if you are more fortunate maybe some eggs and hot American coffee.
Mike crowed so much about the pool, that after breakfast, Rick and I headed to see the pool to see what the ballyhoo was all about. It turns our the pool was right next to our room.
We entered the pool and exercise area and were met by the gym staff who escorted us through the locker rooms and to the pool. When we entered the pool area, we understood why Mike was impressed. The pool was a huge infinity pool, with a deep blue paint job and crystal clear water. Made me wish I had a bathing suit.
At 9:45 we headed down to the lobby to meet Jo for the last time and our subway adventure. Unfortunately it was raining. It wasn't just raining it was downright pouring. It was raining so hard that the rain was horizontal not verticle. There was a decision to be made. Do we head out in the rain, take the subway to old town and walk around or do we wait a little and see what happens. Mike wanted to wait, but we all wanted to go. We stood around discussing the options when it suddenly stopped raining. Mike was disappointed, some how we felt he did not want to go, but he was out voted and we all headed for the 10 minute walk to the subway. Ok, it was still raining a little, but we had borrowed umbrellas from the from desk, so we were covereed.
Now the subway was an experience. Fortunately Jo had printed our specific directions as to what trains and what lines we needed to take to get to the old square. It went like this: take the No. 2 train from Shanghai Circus six stops to Peoples Square. Get off here and follow the signs to the number 1 line to Nanjing road. Get off at the next stop and transfer again to the No. 10 line and then take that one stop to Yuyuan Gardens. Easy Peasy right? Thank the heavens Jo was with us.
The subway was clean, bright, free of orders and packed to the hilt. The first thing you do is buy a ticket at the kiosk to your final destination. Total cost 4 CYN ($.73). Then you follow the very clear instructions to the proper line and board the train. The trains are crowded, as are the platforms and the stairs. Even though it was crowded there was a chaotic order to things. Since it was a Saturday there were no Pushers on the platforms. The Pushers are uniformed paid employees whose job it is to "push" you into the crowded trains during rush hour. Amazing right! The trains come into the station every 2.5 minutes. There must be more than 10 cars on each train and with all this, they are crowded. When you have more than 25 million people in one city it is crowded all the time.
In any event, we followed Jo and her directions and we safely reached Yuyuan Garden station. We then walked about 5 minutes to the Bazaar area for our final shopping and lunch on our own. It was raining again at this time, but, with umbrella in hand, we stood around Jo for final directions. Jo gave us some ideas of how to negotiate the area and then told us she would stay here for an hour in case we needed any help. After that she was going to return to the hotel for some much needed downtime. Mike and Dick were not too thrilled with the rain and decided to stay with Jo until she returned to the hotel. Rick, John and I teamed up and decided to explore on our own.
First stop was a Taoist temple built in 38 BC. Now I have not idea of the belief system of the Taoists, but they can sure build a beautiful temple and amazing statues of their gods. We entered the temple court and were given free incense to offer the gods. John and I went to the communal lighter, lit our sticks and placed them reverently in the burner and offered our thoughts to the gods. This was an active temple so there were many people who came here to revere their specific deity and to ask for a blessing. We took some photos and headed out. It was still raining but the weather was warm and we were very comfortable.
Outside the temple was a candy store, so we bought a gift box for me and for Rick, to a have some sweets for our return home. We decided we were hungry. Now after eating 2 weeks of Chinese food every meal, and not knowing how or what to order, we decided to try a western style meal. We have several choices; McDonald's or Pappa John's. Without hesitation we chose Pappa John's.
We crossed some streets and came to a block that not only had a Pappa John's, but also a DQ. We hit the jack pot, Pizza and Ice Cream in one spot. We were in heaven.
We sat down at the table in Pappa John's and were handed a menu. Now we did not speak Chinese and our waitress did not speak English. Our plan was to open the menu, select a pizza and point to order. Good plan, poor execution.
For some reason, everything we pointed to the waitress shook her head no. This happened four or five times. We had no idea what we were doing wrong. Confused, John saw a young man come in the door and asked him if he knew Engligh. He replied "a little." Good enough for us. We told him what we wanted and he told the waitress and she told him no. Now we were really confused. So we asked him to ask her what she wanted us to eat!
The waitress chose a Hawaiian pizza, a pepperoni pizza and a pizza of which we had no idea what it was. OK that's what she wanted us to have, so we agreed. She came back 20 minutes later with a half Hawaiian, half pepperoni and a full unknown pizza. OK, we had what we had, so we decided to eat it.
The unknown pizza had pickels, cheese, peppers and, under the cheese, was a layer of thousand island dressing. The first bite was unique but absolutely delicious. We finished all three and washed it down with some Coke and were off to dessert.
Next door was a Dairy Queen. Now we may have had some ice cream during this vacation, but, we did not have any milkshakes. So we sauntered up to the counter and attempted to order chocolate milkshakes. Not easy. We pointed, pantomimed and Chinglished our way to complete failure. The barrista finally gave us a menu and we pointed to a milkshake like product. She nodded her approval, seems like we could only order want the server wanted us to order, and she had the fountain girl make our treats. They were definitely not milkshakes but they were good.
We did a little more shopping. I got a plaque with my name in Chinese, Ricky got one for Marvin. Ricky also got a bronze bull for his TV stand. By this time the rain had stopped so we walked up and down some of the many streets, and some side streets that we were not supposed to go down, but we had fun anyway. Soon we decided it was time to try to figure our way back home.
I pointed one way and John pointed in the exact opposite direction. I know my sense of direction is bad, so I relinquished command to John, glad I did. We soon ran across Heidi, her mom and dad, Marilyn and Bob, who I might add were going in the complete wrong direction. They soon joined us and we headed to the metro station where we came cross Brian and his bride.
We bought our return tickets and negotiated the reverse of our trip. Without any mistakes at all, we arrived at our destination and walked the 10 minutes back to the hotel. Ricky and I decided a shower was in order, with the walking and the humidity we were a little soaked. After the shower a nap followed.
Our next order of business is a light meal around 6 PM, then to bed for our journey home begins with a 5 AM wake up call and a 7 AM flight back to Beijing.
It will be good to get home. We saw many sights and learned many things. We will carry memories of this trip the rest of our lives. It was fun, educational and the trip of a life time. If reading this helps you to make the decision to go, I promise you, you will not regret it. Safe travels.
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John From Philly
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Arriving Home
Got home safely, Karen (wife) happy to see me but not as much as Elvis (the dog); who jumped between us and licked my face constantly. I would like to say I had a great time and appreciate the new friends I found in Phil, Richard, Dick and Michael; great time together. Not often you can be with people who can rationally discuss differences of opinions in politics and religion but most of the time just clown around, Unique mix. Thanks Again. John From Philly P.S., I've started my diet and I'm going back to marry the one tour guide "Sue", I guess her husband will just have to have an accident.