Early start - waking at 4.30 a.m, breakfasting at 5, and then disembarking and boarding the bus to the airport by 5:45 a.m. Everybody is very slow this morning due to the early start. Into Wuhan Airport - we board our plane that is due to depart at 8.10 a.m but is delayed 40 mins due to a tropical downpour. We missed the rain as we were all quietly (?) snoring until the engines started and we left the terminal..
An uneventful flight on a China Southern 737-800 - arrived in Shanghai just after 10 a.m. Angie's uncles and aunts swing into action and our bags are lined up for us to identify then it's onto the bus and we head for China's international city. (200,000 foreigners amongst 27M Chinese)
First stop is for lunch at a very large Chinese Restaurant. The reason I mention the size is that the waiters are wearing roller skates to get the food from the kitchen to the function room. They are not very successful as our lazy susan lunch today is (once again) lukewarm and the standard is poor. The chicken and duck are all bone and swimming in congealing fat, the dumplings and rice are cold.
That's it! We are now sworn off any further lazy susan meals this trip!
Then it's off to the Museum of Shanghai in People's Square - on 4 floors and has displays on just about everything Ancient Chinese including (but not limited to) Minority Costumes and Masks, Jade, Chinese Calligraphy, coinage and, Ming and Qing furniture. The temperature inside is set very low and it's quite uncomfortable, so much so that after 40 mins we decide to leave and thaw out in the square outside. Perhaps it's because we feel so tired? Fortunately it's beautiful and we wander around the surrounding gardens in the square. Everywhere you go there are people cleaning, street sweepers, people wiping down the railings on buildings - the public places are spotless.
We are then taken to our new Hotel which is the Westin (very nice indeed) - on Henan Rd, three blocks from the historic Bund area. We have a short rest, then before dinner, we take a constitutional walk down to the Bund and admire the lights on the office buildings around the river . Spectacular! Some high rise buildings have entertaining light displays, others display advertising - haven't seen anything like this before (or at least, since Chongqing. Once we've exhausted our cameras, we wander back to the hotel for a very impressive smorgasbord selection. Our diets start when we arrive back on Wednesday!
2025-02-11