It's a lovely Tuesday evening, here in Shanghai where the weather is...well...wet.
Since we had to wake at an insane hour yesterday, we were lucky enough to sleep in today and did not leave our lovely hotel until 8:30am. We are staying at the Jian Gong Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai. It is situated right across the street from a lovely park. It is probably the best hotel we have stayed in so far--at least the bed is not quite as hard as the others! But I think I was so exhausted, that it didn't really matter.
First up on today's schedule was the silk factory. I wish I could tell you which one it was, but it was all a blur. There was a small museum attached to it (obviously set up for tourists) and a place to buy all the silk products you could possibly want. There was a beautiful comforter cover that I liked but I could not imagine how I was going to get it home. After shopping for about an hour in the store, I came away with a few beautiful prizes for some friends and a silk scarf for myself.
Next we visited the beautiful Jade Buddha temple in Shanghai. This place was amazing. It is situated right in the middle of the town (like I guess everything is) and is definitely a place where people come to pay homage to the Buddha and pray. I felt like I was invading someone’s space--because the place is small and we were in all the places the worshipers wanted to be. We were told that we could take several pictures of some of the Buddhas, but no pictures were allowed of the Jade Buddha. If we wanted, there would be postcards for purchase. Well, of course one of us had to test this.
One of the teachers on our trip decided she would take a picture of the Buddha on the sly. As we were in the main viewing area, she held up her camera discreetly and snapped a shot. Later, when she went to view the picture on her camera, the camera froze. She tried turning it off and on and it still didn’t work. It was only after she deleted the picture and removed the data card that her camera would word. So, for future reference, don’t “dis” the Buddha!!
Next up was the Nanjing District which was upscale shopping at it's finest. This is apparently where all the rich people come to shop. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain. The first thing we did was find a noodle place to eat some lunch. Our city tour guide, Leo, recommended the Aijsen Ramen Noodle restaurant...which is Japanese and a chain---but fantastic noodles! I had this big bowl of noodles with pork which was amazing!
Diane and I decided to do a little exploring so we moseyed on down Nanjing Road to check out the shops. It was still raining so we did not go far (plus we did not have a lot of time.) We finally decided that maybe a coffee shop would be a great place to sit and watch the people. We couldn't find one, but we did find the Hagaan Das! We met some more from our tour group that had the same idea and we sat and had what I would call "happiness in a cup" which was vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it. OH MY GODDESS it certainly hit the spot on this rainy day!
We finished up our coffee and ice cream just in time to get on the bus. Unfortunately, one of us got lost. The bus left for our next adventure but our wonderful tour guide stayed behind to find our missing students and would meet us at Yuyuan Gardens.
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