It's April 1, and pinch us: we're really in Shanghai for day 2 of our stop here. Getting up was a bit of a struggle due to our active and long day touring yesterday. But we made it to our pre-arranged assembly point by 7:45am and headed off the gangplank where we had to show the stamped copy of our passports to the immigration authorities before walking out to the street where we met our guide, Autumn, for day two of our tour. Today was planned to be focused on city stops as we had to be back to the ship by 3:30pm.
The French Quarter was our first stop and uts definitely very European in design. We were then bussed to a silk factory where my wife spent the most money we have ever spent on a shore excursion purchase: a silk comforter and cover at around $450. The store compression packed it for ease of transport. We then went to the ancient Yu Garden. We were hustled by many young people wanting to sell Minion Helicopters or roller-skate devices that strap on one's shoe heels. The bottom line price seemed to be 15 Yuan per pair, but many were purchased for 20 Yuan or $3.00. They are kinda novel, and our grand-daughter purchased a pair.
The temple was interesting and definitely old. The artistry of the garden pools was well done and the structure was built without nails.
A tea demonstration then followed which was interesting and we bought some cups that have a drawing that changes design with the introduction of heat. Lunch was at a hotel restaurant (A'Da of Number 1) and featured the typical multi course meal. This one was much more bland than the day before but still yummy.
We finished the day with a visit to the Jade Buddha. It was crowded with visitors as this is the weekend ancestors are honored. Back at the ship we said our goodbyes to Autumn and walked back to the ship, displayed our photocopied Passport to immigration, and reboarded the ship where we surrendered our passport photocopy.
I used the time fro our embarkation to when the ship left the dock to update my journal and. At h up on email. Just after 5pm the Captain gave the commands for the thrusters to move us away from the dock into the river channel amongst the various pieces of river traffic. With the protection of a police boat we backed down the river about a half mile and did a clockwise turn in order to be able to sail facing forward down the river to the sea and on to Korea.
We enjoyed a great conversation with an Aussie couple from Adelaide euntil we sailed under the main bridge that prevents larger ships from sailing up the river to our cruise terminal. There was only about 15 feet of clearance under the bridge! We'll be sailing for a number of hours to reach the sea and even have a change of pilots when we reach the Yangtze River.
Dinner in the Lido Marketplace was an Asian theme and quite good. The 7pm enrichment lecture by Philip on K-pop (Korean Music Culture) was quite good and Anastasia really liked it. We convinced her to go see the illusionist, Andrew Lee, and he was really really good.
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