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We spent May 28, 29 and 30th in Shanghai. We chose to stay at the Ramada Plaza Hotel from reviews in a guidebook and online and were very pleased with the choice. It is not actually part of the US Ramada chain any longer and is actually much nicer than US Ramadas. It was located right on Nanjing Road, which is the big "walking street" or pedestrian mall of Shanghai. We were one block from Renmin or People's Square and Park and about a mile from the Bund.
The first day there, we just kind of wandered, we had planned to see the famous Shanghai Acrobat Show, but it turned out they weren't performing at the Theatre we walked to because of the holiday. We had fun exploring a music/movie store and then walked to the Bund. The Bund is the old section of Shanghai along the river, supposedly a very nice grassy area and walkway - unfortunately it was all blocked off due to construction. We accidentally found an underground market which was interesting. We got Leah her name painted as a picture while we watched. We also went into a store right next to the hotel which is a
View from hotel window
Looking towards Nanjing Road, you can see the rooftop cafe and some rooftop tennis courts 4 story children's department store with an arcade in the basement. It was filled with designer type clothes, but we found a stationary department on the top floor where Leah found some things. The first night, we had dinner at a steak house across from the hotel which was very good.
The second day, Friday, we had breakfast at a little outdoor cafe, then walked to People's Park to check out the amusement park area. From there we caught a taxi to the other side of the river, which is the newer section of Shanghai called Pudong. We went to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium which was great and I'll write a separate entry for. Then we walked past the Oriental Pearl Tower next door, then continued walking to the Jin Mao Tower, which we went up in to the observation floor (88th!). It was a pretty clear day for Shanghai and we enjoyed the views. We then walked to the river, which thankfully had no construction on this side! It was very enjoyable, but our feet were getting tired! Who knows how far we walked - way more than we're used to walking! We took a ride back across the
Rooftop cafe
seen from our hotel window river in an underground sightseeing tunnel which has a laser light show as you cross. I have a lot of pics of Pudong, so will also post those in a separate entry.
We walked back to the hotel, cleaned up and decided to look for a Western name brand restaurant. We thought there were supposed to be quite a few here, but hadn't seen much other than KFC, McD's, Subway and Pizza Hut. Finally decided to take a taxi to Tony Roma's, had a good dinner and returned to the hotel exhausted about 10:30.
Sunday, after breakfast at the cafe again, we checked out the arcade, then got Leah a promised Hersheys drink before getting picked up at noon.
We had an enjoyable time, but learned 2 things about the Chinese people - there are a LOT of them and they are LOUD! And there are neon lights everywhere! So, my senses were overwhelmed!
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