Rockeries, 1221, and Nanjing Liu

Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/krfraser5/YuYuanGardens

Day three brought to the famous Yu Yuan Gardens, a short drive through the Fuxing Tunnel and just on the other side of the Nanpu river.  Again we went early to avoid the crowds.  Lesson 4: In a city of 20 million, you cannot avoid the crowds.  Not having been there before we were expecting to arrive at the magnificent gate of a fantastic temple.  Instead we found ourselves dropped off in the middle of a very crowded market with traditional Chinese architecture.  Very cool, yet very crowded and where were the gardens?   We double/triple checked with Mr. He that we were in the right place and he confirmed we were.  Okay...let's go.  We went in and wandered about, arriving first at the Taoist temple that happened to be in the same location.  We got our fill of incense and large gold statues and moved on in search of the gardens.  We found them a few minutes and hundreds of people later.  It ended up being a nice sanctuary as the cover charge, while not much to us, was enough to scare away many of the locals.  The Yu Yuan gardens were built in the 1500's during the Ming Dynasty.  The gardens are famous for the large rockeries, which you can see in the pictures and I will leave the pictures to define a rockery.  After gazing at many a rockery and the beautiful scenery, we ventured back out of the gardens into the crowd. 

Deciding this was a good place to pick up some souvenirs we wandered in and out of the shops.  Dave and Ayumi got to witness first hand some aggressive bargaining, which is fun but can be exhausting...more on bargaining on Day 5.  Tanner even took his first shot at bargaining in purchasing a chess set.  I had to give him a small course correction, which the shop keeper did not appreciate, but his 80 RMB deal got admiration from another shopkeeper we ran into later who asked how much we paid.  Good job, Tanner!

The most interesting part of the day occurred in the local restaurant famous for its western cuisine...McDonalds (hey, we were desperate).  Near the end of meal a beggar came up, one coin in palm to show what is to be given.  We ignored him as everyone does but he was very persistent.  As we talked around him, he began reaching for Amanda's coke.  We all just stared, wondering should we grab the coke, smack his hand, say no, what?  Well he actually got close enough and took the coke.  Well...that was one bold move we had never seen before.  We watched him leave, take the lid off and begin drinking it.  Well  he certainly needed it more that we did.  Amanda was the most surprised and the most thirsty as a result.

Later in the day, the Ayi stayed late to watch the kids while we drove to back to the other side of the river to enjoy some adults only time.  We went to a Chinese restaurant called 1221, which is the address of the street it is on...very creative.  This was another double check with the driver moment as we were dropped off in an shady looking alley with no obvious restaurant doors, just a couple of large dark heavy iron doors with no markings.  Well we pushed on one and guess what?  There was a very nice restaurant inside!  We discovered quickly what the restaurant is famous for as they poured the water for our tea from a 4 foot long metallic container with a circular motion that created a dramatic effect in the tea cup and left you wondering when it was going to start landing in your lap.  Scary, yet very cool.  The rest of the meal was far less dramatic, but very good.  Again we proved that we cannot order too much food. 

After dinner we finished the evening on East Nanjing Rd., a shopping area that feels much like Times Square in NYC with many lights and lots of people.  We walked the street and were offered many good deals on Rolexes and purses and then found our destination.  Pearl City.  Of course the women loved this spot, the guys not so much, but you cannot leave China without getting some very reasonably priced jewelry...and Ayumi did not.  Thanks Dave!  The evening was finished off with a scoop of great ice-cream at a nearby Haagen-Dazs.  A long but very enjoyable day 3.

At the Aquarium/Pearl Tower...with 50,000 Chinese

Photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/krfraser5/AquariumPearlTowerMay2008

Day two of Dave and Ayumi's visit brought us to downtown Shanghai (Pudong side).  I drove since Mr. He had the holiday off and we left early to try and avoid the crowds.  (Lesson 3: May Holiday being reduced to one day from three, makes the one day very, very, very busy.  Avoid major attractions.)  Our first taste of this lesson was upon arriving at the aquarium and having a full parking garage.  The attendant promptly explained the situation and where I was to park.  I did not understand a word...but did understand the hand motions.  After we parked, we walked to the aquarium.  There we saw bus after bus after bus dumping loads of people into the aquarium.  Not a good sign, but we forged ahead.  Inside we found that the crowd was now contained in a much smaller space and we could not estimate how many buses had dropped off people...a lot.  Crowded was an understatement as we jostled for viewing of exhibits.  We even took a break in a corner to regroup, it was that bad.  Fortunately, once we got past the first few exhibits the crowd thinned enough to enjoy what is truly a fantastic aquarium.

Having worked up an appetite we walked to the Super Brand Mall and had lunch at our favorite dumpling restaurant.  Since we had 7 people we got a private room with a great view of the river.  Very cool.  However, after trying to order 4 fried pork plates from our Chinese waitress we were switched to an English speaking waiter who explained that it was too much food.  Not cool.  We proved them wrong...rolled out of the restaurant and headed back to the Pearl tower.  We had to fight the crowds to get in since it is apparently quite popular to hang out outside the gates and look to see who is going in/out.  Once in it was about a 20 minute wait to take an elevator to the 263 meter point.  There we had some great views of Shanghai on about as clear a day as you will get here.  The best part was we could plan our escape route from our parking spot...the worst part was there was no escape route...traffic was not going to be fun.

As usual in both the aquarium and the Pearl tower Justin was a main attraction having several photo ops with the locals.  One cute Chinese girl about his size wanted her picture with him at the Pearl tower.  He was quick to explain that she was not his girlfriend...sure she's not Justin...she was cute.  Another pattern also started to emerge...Amanda looks very much like Dave and Ayumi's daughter, especially when holding Ayumi's hand...and people were asking...too funny!

We left the tower and went back to the car and made our way out to the street...everything was fine, if not slow, until we hit the entrance to the Super Brand Mall.  If you look closely at the picture from the Pearl tower you can see where we got stuck, it is a mass of people and cars in front of the mall.  To make matters worse, a taxi and a bus ran into each other and both drivers were outside the vehicles yelling and pointing.  We had cars all around us, several within inches of the car, as everyone tried to maneuver around the accident and also tried not to hit the stream of people going to the mall.  We made it through safely, with no pedestrian casualties.  Dave and Ayumi were shocked and amazed and ready to go back to Tokyo.  They could not believe the complete chaos that we traveled through, but were glad to see it first hand.   I was really glad I got to drive it first hand...not!!

For all the crowded moments, it was a good day two.  Stay tuned for day 3...

First House Guests...tell me again which airport?

Our first house guests left this morning (Monday) to go back home. So this is the first in a series of posts dedicated to their trip. Since we have not had guests before we needed some willing guinea pigs to test some new waters. Unfortunately, the waters started out a little choppy...

Let me introduce our guests...my brother Dave and his girlfriend, Ayumi. They currently live in Tokyo and had a short flight to Shanghai and only a one hour time difference. They decided to come and visit us during the May holiday (holiday in both Japan and China). They arrived Wed. night and I went to pick them up with Mr. He at the Pudong International Airport. A new terminal had been opened there recently so we confirmed with the travel agent that the flight was arriving at the new terminal 2.  Upon arrival I checked the fancy new arrival displays and found no flight number matching 816 from Tokyo...a flight at 4:20 and one at 5:30, no 816...no 4:30...uh oh.  I got Kim on the phone and she got a hold of the travel agent that earlier confirmed T2 at Pudong..."Oops, sorry, that flight is arriving in Hong Qiao not Pudong."  (Travel agent got a little bit from Kim in the exchange, but you can imagine that yourselves)  Oops is right...Hong Qiao is on the other side of Shanghai and it was rush hour the day before a major holiday!  Dave and Ayumi's Japanese cells phone do not work in China, trying to get a page out in a Chinese airport seemed remote, so we started our trek to the other side of Shanghai at 4:45.  Fortunately I had told Dave earlier in an email to stay in one place if something happens and borrow a nice person's cell phone and give me a call if need be.  Well something did happen and I got the call at 5:20, "Where are you?"  "Other side of Shanghai, stuck in traffic, not sure when I will be there...hang tight".  6:15 we pulled up to the the airport and finally picked up our guests...first lesson learned...never trust a travel agent to tell you the right airport or learn how to read a Chinese itinerary.

Meanwhile, back home our Ayi had whipped up a fabulous Chinese meal and was stressed out with her guests arriving so late.   We arrived at about 7:00 with hungry guests after a long wait at the airport.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed several different types of Chinese dishes served up family style.  The main event however was still to come...

What is a great way to end a stressful day of airport travel?  ...a massage...so we left the kids with Wang and headed out to Head 2 Toe.  Here we learned lesson number 2...Dave is still very ticklish on his feet and could be given the nickname, "Frodo". 

All's well that ends well...the day ended very well...more to come.