Sleep eluded me for the most part despite the lovely Scotch precursor but such is life. I seem to be able to manage on little sleep.
Breakfast was an elaborate buffet with way too much choice. Tony had suggested we take full advantage so I did – trying out a number of Chinese dishes and supplementing it with a few “western-style” baked goodies.
We boarded a bus to head into the main section of the city to check out the Shanghai Museum. We all noted how clean the streets are and were blown away by the number of high-rises and sky-scrapers. With the density of housing you can see why the population is so high (more than 26 million I think Tony said).
The four floors of the stunning museum were divided into sections devoted to the arts of jade carvings, watercolour paintings, ornate furniture, intricate pottery. We only had a couple of hours so I missed a lot. I could have spent many hours wandering through those rooms. Some of the jade carvings dated back almost six thousand years and were beautifully carved. I really loved the ethnic clothing exhibits.
From the museum we walked to a restaurant where we enjoyed a Chinese lunch with local beer and tea. I was not totally enamoured with the meal – partly cuz my stomach was a bit off but most of the dishes were quite salty. An antacid tablet fixed me up so a bit later I was able to enjoy wandering near the Maglev train station while a number of our group took a ride on the Magnetic Elevated train that travelled 30 km in six minutes. (That was a bit of a run-on sentence)
Later we took a walk along the bund (riverside) of the Huangpu River. It is lined with a number of skyscrapers exhibiting an interesting variety of architectural designs. I didn’t see a lot of children but I did see a couple of toddlers wearing pants with open crotches. I guess it makes it easier when they need to be changed. One didn’t even sport a diaper – just a wee bare bum peeking out.
Most of the group opted to do a night-time river cruise for an hour (with an added $50 cost) which I and a few others chose to forgo. So now I’m relaxing in the room after a lovely shower writing this with CNN talking in the background.