Shanghai in a day

March 8, 2009
Shanghai, China

Queen Victoria continued her voyage through Southeast Asia when she docked at Shanghai’s overly massive container terminal on March 8th. Since I spent approximately $135 USD on a visa for entry into the People’s Republic of China, I knew the way to see as much as possible would be to go on yet another full-day tour.

I was chosen to escort an excursion entitled “Shanghai – Past & Present” which provided me with a nice mix of things to see and do throughout the day. The first stop was the Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower, one of the more distinguishable items in Shanghai’s vast skyline. The shape of the structure was innovative and interesting, but the pinkish color of the tower’s “pearls” was a bit off-putting.

Soon after arriving at the “Pearl”, as locals know it, we boarded an elevator and went up to the main observation level located 863 feet above the ground. I was able to walk around and catch a 360-degree panoramic view of the city of Shanghai and all the interesting buildings nearby.

I spent a bit of time viewing what I could of the Shanghai skyline before descending back to ground level and going to the Contemporary History Museum, located at the base of the tower. It was filled with wax figurines and models of buildings, storefronts, and Shanghai streets of the past and inside I even found some automobiles and trams historically significant to Shanghai. In the end, I wrote this portion of the trip off as “filler” and something that the local tour operator added so they could save time by having two stops in one place. I went through the museum at a brisk pace before exiting the tower to spend some free time walking around outside.

I walked across the street from the tower pavilion and found myself in a stretch of what seemed to be shops alternating between selling food and souvenirs. There were tons of outdoor food establishments that consisted of various ingredients and a wok to cook them in, made to order. It looked and smelled amazing. Sadly, lunch had been arranged at a somewhat up-scale Shanghai hotel, so I forced myself to wait just a little bit longer before eating PROPER Chinese Food. I then ventured into an overcrowded (in China, everywhere you go is overcrowded) shopping center but quickly got turned off by the sheer number of people inside. It was still an interesting experience to enter a Chinese shopping mall.

After returning to the bus outside the Pearl, we headed to a hotel for lunch. Upon arrival at the Jin Jiang hotel, our guide informed us that it was at here where Former US President Richard Nixon stayed during his visit to Shanghai in the 1970s. Our dining room was located on the fifth floor in one of a few different buildings that comprised the hotel, and immediately after sitting down, food started being brought to our tables. It was a family-style luncheon, with large platters of food being placed on a revolving platform in the middle of each table. This offered everyone a taste of many different things rather than larger portions of each course (what I was used to seeing from doing many lunch-included tours in Europe), so I helped myself to various items that pleased my taste buds. The food brought to our tables was not so different from what one might eat in a Chinese restaurant somewhere else in the world, but the overall taste was much better here in Shanghai.

After eating seven or eight small courses, I returned to the coach and we headed to our next stop: the Jade Buddha Temple. The Jade Buddha temple was founded in the late 19th century and is still a place of worship. In all of my travels through Southeast Asia, this was the more interesting temples I had the chance to visit. It was booming with activity in that everywhere I looked there were people praying or burning incense, and I even witnessed some Buddhist monks singing.

Like the Sofuku ji temple in Nagasaki, the Jade Buddha Temple consisted of more than one building. It had a large courtyard and a few different buildings filled with many different statues of Buddha, but the most spectacular statues were the two made of jade, one in a sitting position and the other reclining. They were beautiful, and unfortunately, I was not able to view them for a long time due to a tightly-packed itinerary. While at the temple, I also had the opportunity to take in a “tea ceremony”, which was little more than an opportunity for me to taste some different types of Chinese tea, and I took advantage. After the tea tasting, I returned to the bus and moved on to the old town of Shanghai for an exciting conclusion to the tour.

Our coach made its way from the Jade Buddha Temple to the old town of Shanghai, from where we walked to the location for our last guided portion of the tour: the Yuyuan Garden. The Yuyuan Garden was originally a private garden that dates back to the late 16th century, but buildings continued to be constructed through the 19th century. It was beautifully designed and the mix between pagodas small and large with ponds, green areas, pathways, and rocks could not have been more perfect. It was interesting to walk through something so beautiful and was like nothing I had ever seen. I had to keep the entire tour group moving along, so I was not able to fully take in my surroundings but still enjoyed the guided walk through the garden.

After leaving the Yuyuan Garden, I had the opportunity to spend nearly an hour walking around the old town of Shanghai and I used this time to buy some souvenirs. I purchased a silk tie with Chinese characters on it, a postcard, and a small jade Buddha before heading back to meet our guide and walk back to the bus. On the way back, I purchased a food item that I doubt I’ll ever forget. I would call it a candied fruit kebab in that it consisted of five or six different pieces of fruit covered in hard candy. It tasted great and was something totally new to me, but one of these pieces of fruit was a cherry tomato. Weirdly enough, the cherry tomato tasted better than the candied cherry, a component to the fruit kebab.

All in all, my day in Shanghai was good, but not great. I did a lot and saw a lot, but it was not the most-exciting port I visited in the region. Nevertheless, I am glad that I paid the money for the Chinese Visa so that I could see what I saw, if only once.