Sunday, June 14, 2015

Day 34, Part II: First Full Day in Shanghai

1) The Bund

2) The Bund 
3) The Nightlife at Nanjing Lu
4) The Awfully Chocolate dessert store (so yummy!) 
5) Getting the spins on the kiddie ride in people's park
6) Shanghai Museum 
7) Jared getting his wheelies adjusted 
8) The fake market 


Despite sleeping at 3:00AM last night, Caton and I made a pact we were going to wake up early this morning, and take advantage of our one free day in Shanghai! We set our alarms for 7:45AM and surprisingly actually got up. We had a free breakfast at the Magnificent hotel and left with Jared R. We headed out on Nanjing Lu, walked over the overhead, and found our way to the Shanghai Museum. The Shanghai Museum consisted of 4 floors and was beautifully designed. There were many exhibits such as jade, furniture, calligraphy, and seals. I found it very cool how furniture in the Ming Dynasty was not constructed using nails but by the inserted soldier joint method. Even though I expected a non-nail furniture to be not as anesthetically pleasing, I believe the method actually made the wood more smooth and connected the pieces without a scratch. In addition, the ritual jades from the Xia, Shang, Zhou dynasties original purpose was to consolidate political power before becoming the jade jewelry as we know today. Who knew??? 

After the Shanghai Museum, we walked around the People's Park. It was really peaceful and a good way to get away from all the cars and human traffic in Shanghai. We also found a kids amusement park inside the park and soon decided we should get on the swing set. It was fun and exciting in the beginning, but soon after 2 minutes, we all got the spins. We actually continued to get the spins for 30 minutes later. We went to the Raffles City building basement soon after to get lunch. The basement had so many different types of food from typical Chinese to Italian. We settled on Carl Jrs, the burger place that Jenn recommended. After resting up at Carl jrs, we walked to find the "Fake Market" on the intersection of Nanjing Lu and Chengdu Lu. It consisted of 4 floors and had literally any brand you can imagine. I ended up with a pair of shoes for only 40 kuai and Jared with a wallet for 75 kuai. At around 5PM, we were already exhausted and walked down to a food court building. After dinner, we walked on Nanjing Lu and observed the department stores. We met with Malia, and Jared bought a pair of wheels to roll around in. We ended the perfect day at a walk in the bund. Can't wait to go back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow! 

- Michelle F.

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