Tuesday March 29, 2016

Shanghaied.

Up early. Eat breakfast. Fight with hotel staff over complimentary breakfast for all five people. Win fight. At least refuse to acknowledge losing fight. Check out of hotel. Get in van. Drive like hell. Avoid causing multiple roadside fatalities. Barely. Get to the Nanjing train station. Say goodbye to Denise. Wait around trying to decipher PA announcements in Chinese. See mad rush for train. Join said mad rush. Make it onto train. Find space for many bags of luggage. Find seats. Get situated. Briefly panic when you fear you may be on wrong train. Dispel fear when you realize you are on right train. Question certainty of train accuracy. Bury apprehension and hope for best. Train leaves station. Exhale.

So our morning was eventful. How was yours?

With Nanjing in our rear view mirror it was off to Shanghai and a whirlwind tour of its many sights, all packed into an all too brief day and a half. We arrived into the Shanghai train station and met up with our new guide Joyce, a fleet-footed young woman who is going to have to learn to slow down lest Dorothy has to take matters into her own hands. We rushed to our van, skipping the hotel to get right to the sightseeing. Wasn’t the way we have scheduled it, but sometimes you’ve got to just go with the flow.

First stop was Shanghai’s Bund which is the riverfront of the Huangpu River as it runs through the city with century old, European architecture on the western shore and barely decade old modern high-rise skyline to the east. It’s quite impressive to see the evolution of the city set so clearly side by side and makes for a lovely walk especially on a warm, sunny day just like the one we were lucky enough to have today.

After a pedestrian lunch at a place far too touristy for our general taste we were afforded some time to stroll the Bund. Our walk down the crowded promenade was punctuated by several stops so Dorothy could pose our children with various elaborately dressed sightseers much to the dismay of the kids. They sought my help to try and free them from their terminal embarrassment which I of course refused lest my wife’s photographic lens became trained on myself instead of them.

Once the walk was finished we made our way to the Shanghai Museum. The museum was quite interesting, and we particularly enjoyed the Chinese Imperial furniture wing as well as the Chinese Calligraphy exhibits. All in all it was a nice, low-key way to kill a few hours absorbing some history and culture at our own pace rather than that of a well meaning — yet schedule driven — tour guide.

Finishing at the museum we were finally granted the right to check into our hotel. Not wanting to waste too much of our last few days here in China, we left for a walk around the surrounding city streets to get a lay of the land and do some people watching. We all began to get hungry, and with no insult to the predominantly amazing cuisine we have had on our trip so far, we craved something a little closer to home for a change. We found a pizza place on our walk, so we rolled the dice and decided to check it out. Now, I’m a tried and true New York City pizza snob, and maybe it’s the home sickness talking but I’ll be darned if that Shanghai pizza wasn’t half bad. At the very least I’ve had much, much worse (I’m looking at you Dominos). The capper was an Oreo and banana dessert pizza that, all things considered, was the culinary highlight of the day. Tough to screw up an Oreo.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel to get the kids into bed early as the nonstop travel is starting to take its toll on them and they could use a good night’s sleep (to say nothing of their equally drained parents). Tomorrow is our last full day in China. It’s a jammed packed one so we’re sure to get our moneys worth and with a little bit of luck we’ll have a great time and leave on a high note. See you in approximately 24 hours faithful readers.

Eating Chinese pizza…and loving it…