4th May – Shanghai city tour

We have a city tour on this showery morning, so a mini bus picks us up from our hotel with our guide Helen and the first stop is the Jade Buddha temple,  The temple complex where the Jade Buddha is was destroyed during the cultural revolution, however the monks at the temple were told by Chairman Mao to save the jade Buddha by building a wooden frame around it and enclosing it with pictures of Chairman Mao around the outside. The monks dressed in soldiers uniforms & told officials that they had destroyed the Jade Buddha. The temples that we see today were rebuilt in 1982.

Our next stop is to the French quarter where the French lived when they moved into China during the Opium wars. The area has been rebuilt and now is mostly bars & restaurants. We could be anywhere in Europe!

Next we go to the Bund (port) which is on the Huangpu River which flows into the Yangtze River which in turn flows into the East China Sea. The old original bank buildings and customs house are gracious old buildings.

There is a huge monument to Peoples Heroes at one end of the promenade, which we understand from Helen is a World War II monument.

We look across the river to the new Shanghai that used to be paddi fields 21 years ago, which is hard to believe. We can’t see the tops of the very tall buildings because of the mist.

There are all sorts of statues and floral art work along this fabulously wide promenade area.

We walk to the old part of Shanghai and have dumplings for lunch. Not as good as Bonnie’s or her mum’s though!

After lunch we go to a tea tasting, which is really interesting, one of my favourites is the ginseng oolong tea.

The Romeo & Juliette teas formed lovely flowers after a few minutes, although they look magnificent they don’t taste all that great!

After dark we catch the Metro back to Nanjing Rd that has all the fancy shops along it and it we walk along to the Bund area.

There are people everywhere the footpaths are so crowded we have to walk along the road.

When we get to the port area all the buildings on the new Shanghai side of the river are lit up with many colours. The old buildings have more subdued lighting, more in keeping with their age.

We wander back along Nanjing Rd and have a wonderful hotpot dinner in an upstairs restaurant.  When we finish eating the staff come out into the restaurant to have their dinner.