We have had a very exhausting 2 days here in Shanghai. We really enjoyed both days. This always surprises me, since as you can tell from previous posts, big cities don’t excite either of us. But even though this is our third visit here, we still saw new stuff and experienced different interactions with the locals.
The first day we were welcomed by a rain storm with winds and lots of rain. The umbrellas we got from the ship turned out to be useless because of the wind. So we closed the one that hadn’t gotten destroyed by the wind and just got rained on.
We took the shuttle bus supplied by the ship to a silk exhibition center near the People’s Park. We had seen the silk exhibition center on a previous visit, so we skipped it this time. (except we used their WC)
Within the People’s Park is the Shanghai Museum. We went to the museum. We only had to walk a couple of blocks to get to the museum, but….the map we got from the ship and the location they told us we were dropped off at, were both useless. We were on the opposite side of the People’s Park. So, obviously, when we started walking to the museum, we went the wrong way. So our day became one of adventures.
We did find the museum.
The museum has tons of stuff. Pottery,
costumes,
jade
and ceramics.
Wood carvings
Calligraphy
and stone carvings
and lots more. But enough for now.
We were expecting to see the terra cotta warriors from Xi'an, but that exhibition was no longer there. Instead we saw paintings from the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Italy. How strange to see Italian art in China. The museum was very interesting and we spent about 1 1/2 hours there. We stopped browsing and had some tea in the tea room. We got tea leaves in cups and a pot of hot water. So, when you added the water to the tea leaves you got tea with a lot of leaves floating in it. Arleen went back to the counter and asked how to drink the tea with all the floating leaves. So, we learned how to do that.
Then we went looking for a subway, or metro, station so we could get a map for tomorrow. Sounds easy doesn’t it. Especially since we had a map that showed a metro stop. Well, we couldn’t find it. We asked people as they walked by us if they spoke English. They did not. One man, who spoke no English, said he stuff. We said thank you, She she, and he walked away. He came back and said a whole lot of stuff in Chinese. We smiled and said “she she”. He smile and walked away. He came back again. He showed us his cell phone and he dialed it. After talking for a while, he handed the phone to Arleen, who spoke to his son. She explained they were looking for a metro station and she gave the phone back to Dad. He talked for a while to his son and gave the phone to Arleen again. His son said “go to a hotel and ask for a map”
Well, that man did all he could to help us. Even though we didn’t find the metro station then, we did find the wonderful helpfulness of the people here. For tourists it is difficult to travel away from tourist areas because not many people speak English, but the people here are as helpful and friendly and caring as we have found anywhere.
We did accidentally find a metro station. Even with the help of the police, whose help did not get us to the metro station, we found one. Then we discovered that metro maps do not exist. Again, we got wonderful help but no maps.
We walked about 6 hours and saw lots of the city.
We made our way back to the drop off point and safely home to our ship. Lots of exercise today.
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