We awoke early today, had a wonderful breakfast feast at our
hotel and were on our way to the airport by 7:30a.m. to catch our flight to
Shanghai. The airport was immense and
they are building a third terminal that dwarfs the other two. One thing about China, they build for the
future. Our guide checked us in for the
flight and escorted us to security where she waited to ensure we made it all
the way through. Best guide we have had
in a very long time.
Our flight left on time and was uneventful. We arrived at Shanghai’s airport and had a
few moments of anxiety when our guide was not there to greet us. As we plowed through our paperwork to find a
phone number to call, our guide showed up.
She was profusely apologetic but the airline’s online information had
said we had not even landed yet. She
took us to our car and driver and we all began the drive into the city.
We arrived back at the ship, dropped our bags and headed out
to see Shanghai. Wow! What an incredible city. We were immediately accosted by touts trying
to get us to “come upstairs” to see their special wares. After telling them “NO”, we were left
alone. We walked along the Bund soaking
in the sights. The Bund is a large
promenade along the Huangpu River lined with hotels, banks, offices, and clubs
that were the grandiose symbols of western commercial power. Most of the old buildings are still in place
and visually takes you back to another era. Across the river, is the Pudong financial area with it's glittering office towers and signature Oriental Pearl TV Tower.
We turned up Nanjing Lu which has traditionally been Shanghai’s foremost shopping street although competition from more upscale developments have seen most of the high end stores flee. We stopped at a Hagen Daz store to get some ice cream. After being escorted to an area with beautiful couches and tables and offered menus describing incredible confections we knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore. Three scopes of different chocolate ice cream interspersed with huge dove chocolate curls atop a brownie and I was in heaven. It was so good I forgot to take a picture of it.
After exploring more stores, we took a walk through People’s Park & Square which has somewhat like the things you’d find in Central Park in NYC. We then caught a little train on wheels that took us back to the Bund. After getting back to the ship, I went out and experimented with taking night shots of the cityscape.
Good night!
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