Shanghai China - February 24

dumplings with straws

10ish, windy, sunny, but brrrrrrr

Today was the first time in a while that we’ve seen the sun. However…it was chilly! It’s funny how it seems like just a minute ago that I was melting in the heat and humidity and today I wished I had brought my toque and gloves with me on the tour. Anyway…I will NEVER complain about the cold – I’ll comment on it but NEVER complain!

After a leisurely morning and lunch on board, our tour first stopped at the Shanghai Museum. Here we saw Chinese porcelain, coins, furniture, jade, pottery, masks, clothing, and calligraphy. It was very interesting, the most interesting thing I learned was that the holes in ancient Chinese coins were square because the Chinese regarded the sun and heaven as round and the earth as square. The round is on the outside because the sun and heaven was regarded as bigger than the earth.

Next we visited Yu Garden. This place built in the 1500s is a complex housing a temple, beautiful rocks, ponds, pavilions all connected by zig, zagging (so the demons don’t get you) paths and bridges.

Our last visit today was Shanghai’s Old Town which was the centre of Shanghai centuries ago. Our guide told us this was the first China Town, which I don’t actually get The Old Town actually is where the Yu Garden is. Like many other old towns, there are shops, narrow alleys, hawkers and a lot of people. This is the first place so far in Asia where we were approached for ‘pst…watches…pst…bags’.

We only bought a beer, which in itself was an adventure. There weren’t many place to get a beer in fact this was the only place I saw beer, so where we found one was in a sort of food court. There was absolutely NO letters I recognized so I could read NOTHING, but I saw a bottle of beer and pointed. We had to pay for it at one spot and then bring our receipt to where the beer was, which I also didn’t understand at first…we figured it out. The bottle of beer was drank came from a box on the floor, so wasn’t exactly cold – not a big deal on this chilly day. 600 mLs for about 3.00 Canadian.

There was some pretty interesting food in food stalls. The more interesting was a dumpling that people drank out of with a straw. Apparently there is ground pork and other typical dumpling filling, but there’s also broth…hence the straw. No, I didn’t get one.

Checked out Starbucks…latte – 6.00 Canadian.

We decided to walk from the ship to the pedestrian boardwalk area of Shanghai after dinner hoping to find a spot for a beer. Unfortunately, we had no luck. We did however stroll around the boardwalk that was across from all of Shanghai’s skyscrapers which was interesting.

The ship couldn't be docked in a better place. Shanghai isn't on the coast, but on the Yangtze River about 60 miles from the East China Sea. The ship is able to sail all the way to the heart of Shanghai. Our ship is docked right across the Yangtze from the Oriental Pearl Tower and the other Shanghai skyscrapers. This means no long bus rides just to get to the city. The Apparently Shanghai is the third busiest container port in the world. 24 million people call Shanghai home which makes it the largest city-proper in the world. 

This ship and the Oriental Pearl