Wednesday March 30, 2016

It’s all over but the sightseeing.

Alas, our last day in China. Sure we’ll still be in-country for a few hours tomorrow morning prior to our flight home, out of Shanghai’s Pudong airport, but for all intent and purpose, today is the culmination of our journey. I’ll save the soul searching and deep, meaningful retrospectives for another time and spend this entry being as snarky and shallow as ever. You’re welcome.

Now let me start off by saying that our current tour guide, while not a horrible person, is certainly no Denise, no Georgiana, no Yolanda, and certainly, nowhere near the class of our liege; King Arthur of Beijing. For the past two days we have felt, in turn, rushed, abandoned, and ignored. Now, we did’t let any of this ruin our last few days in China but I have been personally bragging up Shanghai — particularly its food, to my family, as I find this city to be one of the culinary gems on the whole face of the earth — and our experience the past few days has not lived up to the hype. That’s ok. You can’t win them all, and the kids seem to not have minded which is the only litmus test that matters. So that’ll be enough of that whining and we will move on. Again, you’re welcome.

First stop on today’s agenda was Shanghai’s Jade Buddha Temple. We’ve seen more than our fair share of Buddha Temples here in China, but this was our first “Jade” one. So as you can imagine the excitement was palpable. Truth be told, it was quite a lovely temple. It was set in the midst of a heavily urban part of the city, so was a little oasis in the midst of soaring buildings and teeming streets. Today was also a holy day that the temple’s faithful were observing which included much praying and chanting by the congregation. It was pleasantly solemn and serene inside the temple walls. We were welcome observers and not at all made to feel like interlopers, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.

Next stop: a hard sell to buy silk masquerading as the “Shanghai Silk Museum”. We’ve had more than our fair share of these experiences on our trip (i.e. jade, pearls, tea) so it was nothing new. Perhaps our guide’s shortcomings had put us in a less than charitable mood (as the guides all get kickbacks on anything you buy on one of these tourist-slash-shopping stops) but we just weren’t in the mood to be pressured into buying a bunch of silk that we really don’t need. The spiel preceding the sales pitch where we were given the background and history of how silk is made was actually fascinating. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll give you the lowdown but suffice it to say that silk is a pretty incredible material and I should get at least one Final Jeopardy answer out of what we learned on our visit. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

Following the silk-sell, we went to the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is — for the next few days until the neighboring Shanghai Tower opens with an additional 20 floors on top of it — the tallest building in the city. We took an ear popping elevator ride to the 100th floor for a panoramic view of the city. The day was hazy and overcast which detracted from the view somewhat but hey, if you visit a city and don’t look at it from the top of its tallest building, really, what’s the point? So we can now say that we’ve checked this item off the Shanghai bucket list. So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.

After seeing Shanghai from above we then made a stop at the Yuyuan Garden in the midst of the “Hello” Market (read: “Hello, you want to buy?”). The garden itself is mostly a recreation of a now defunct 450 year old private garden located on the same spot, yet it also held a certain charm as a peaceful oasis in the midst of a very busy cityscape. We spent more time than we were probably allowed, but so be it. We enjoyed the respite. So we have that going for us. Which is nice.

By this point we were pretty famished so we were rushed to another relatively enjoyable lunch. Nothing out of the ordinary amazing, but nothing particularly unenjoyable either. Nothing particularly nice about that to be sure.

With lunch over we were brought back to our hotel where we spent the rest of the afternoon getting our personal items in order for our trip home tomorrow. We also had the best meal of our visit to Shanghai in the hotel’s in-house Chinese restaurant. It was very low pressure and we laughed together as a family recounting our memories and favorite moments of the past couple of weeks. All-in-all the trip has far exceeded our wildest expectations. There was certainly a speed bump or two that had to be navigated but nothing that in any way derailed our purpose and overall intent. The kids themselves seem to have really enjoyed their trip. I still think they will need some time to really appreciate the opportunity they have been given on this journey, but in general, they get it. So we have that going for us. Which is nice.

And that fair readers, is just about that. Tomorrow morning will be pretty hectic in the AM as we head out to the airport to get our flight home. You probably won’t get our final thoughts on the trip until sometime over the weekend, but fear not, this isn’t the last you’ll hear from us. So you have that going for you. Which is nice.

Next stop: home…