Shanghai, China

        

  

       

         

We have been to Shanghai three times before so we opted to take a tour that went out of the city. Someone told us that this particular tour was a lot of moving from bus to train, etc and not a very good one. When I told her it was our free one, included in our cruise fare she said "you will have a lovely time"! I guess for the price she thought it was too much of getting places and not enough seeing places! Because of Chinese immigration we were told to be at our meeting place 1/2 hour before our scheduled meeting time, which was 1/2 hour before our scheduled departure. We were in the Queen's Lounge at 7:30. We sat there until 8:30 before moving. Customs was well organized and fast once they started. Once on the bus it took over 45 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic to get to the HUGE railroad station which was right next to the airport. Our high speed train left at 10. The highest speed we reached was 302 kpm. It was very modern and a smooth ride. An hour later and we were in our destination city of Hangzhou. 

Hangzhou is the third top tourist destination city in China after Beijing and Shanghai. We boarded the bus that would tour us around for the day. It looked like a double decker but actually had a huge luggage compartment below. We had to go up 5 very steep steps to get to the seats. After another 45 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic we arrived at a hotel for lunch. There were about 12 courses. It was good but very basic Chinese food, not very fancy. We left before dessert to check out the hotel shop and discovered wifi in the lobby so used that for the 15 minutes we had. Another 45 minutes in traffic and we arrived at West Lake. 

                                   

   

West Lake is a huge tourist attraction. There are gardens all around with pathways to get to the lake. It was packed with people. It had also started to rain. We had decided not to carry our umbrellas that day. What we could see of the sky thru the pollution in Shanghai had looked sunny. Whoops! The walk from the bus was about 20 minutes. Then we had to wait for our boat. It wasn't very fancy, with benches inside to sit on. We just did a circle around the lake for 40 minutes then got off. Not sure what the appeal was! At least it wasn't pouring rain, just a slight mist. The walk back to the bus was further, many people were having a hard time plus our guide had picked up the pace. I stopped to take a picture. When I looked up he was a good block ahead. I later found out that because of the long walks to and from the bus that stop had taken twice as long as scheduled so he was trying to make up some of that time. 

        

Next stop was a temple. At one time there were 4 such temples in China. Three were destroyed by the Red Guard during the cultural revolution. It was a 20 minute walk to get there so about half our group opted to stay on the bus. On the way to the temple were many carvings of gods and Buddhas made right into a cliff. It was fascinating, but we had little time to enjoy it as our guide was at his usual fast speed. The temple was beautiful with huge statues of Buddha and other Chinese characters. 

There were a lot of people lighting incense and praying, the smoke was pretty bad. There were 4 different buildings that we went into, each with it's large Buddha and many statues around the perimeter. After that, back to the bus. 

We went thru a long tunnel which led to a valley known for it's tea. We stopped at a tea plantation to learn about growing tea and to have a sample. As we got off the bus Mel slipped on the steep, wet steps. Fortunately he caught himself so didn't fall all the way down. He just bruised a hip, could have been worse. That was lucky. We were led into a room with a U shaped table. We all sat down to watch the demonstration. It was just like an infomercial with the young woman touting all the health benefits of green tea. She showed us what the different qualities are, the best being that which is picked in the spring. Fresh, new leaves with no pesticides used, it is Empress tea. Later in the year they have to spray for bugs. She showed the top three grades, the lowest being the one that is exported. We all laughed at that. She had some green tea pills that are good for cleansing, weight loss, you name it! She said she would pack the tea in front of us so we would know exactly what we were getting. She packed very fast and quite a few bought some including us. It was quite expensive, hope it will be good for us!

                

Back to the bus for our ride to the train station. This time we went to the station in the middle of town. The bus dropped us at the side of the road then we had to walk 2 blocks to the station. Once inside we waited along with a lot of other people for about 20 minutes. The ride back was 70 minutes. There were 2 or 3 more stops in that direction. Back in Shanghai it was a long walk thru the enormous station to find our bus. My pedometer said we had walked 5 miles that day. Not easy for the older crowd that is on this cruise. We were back at the ship just after 9 pm, it had been a long day. 

At that hour there are no restaurants open on board so we were forced to use room service. Because there were 2 bus loads of people in the same situation, it took 45 minutes to get our food. That made it an even longer day! The next day we had a bottle of wine in our cabin with a note from the hotel manager apologizing for their oversight in not providing us with a sit down dining option after a ship's tour. That was a nice surprise. I spent some time on our verandah taking pictures of Pudong, across the river from Shanghai. It was beautiful with all the lights and dinner boats passing by with all their lights on. Amazing city.