The rest of the family visit in Shanghai

Mom has made it safely back to the US, though continuing many travels of her own. It was wonderful to have her visit me in this far-off land, great to have family here with me, and great to have company for for some of the tourist things in Shanghai. Our 2nd cousin, Peter, also left to return home to Bangkok on Friday, but not before we had a few fun happenings.

Even though I was working all week, I was able to join in on some evening fun for several of the days. On Wednesday, we got tickets to see the New Shanghai Circus, featuring Chinese acrobatics. There were feats of strength, dexterity, gymnastics, and some pretty impressive tricks! I'm not sure if I was more impressed by the 10 women on a bicycle going around on the stage, or the 5 men on motorcycles inside the cage ball. I've seen that last one in a circus before, but never so close up. Yikes! On the down side, the setting was a bit run-down, the music was total cheese, and the initial "we're about to get started" dance moves were so painfully bad, but the talent and show of these atheletes totally made up for that, and we were all glad that we went. No photos of the actual performances, but here's Peter and Mom, and Mom and I before the show.

The hall is RED. Very RED. Mom and Peter:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

Me and Mom:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

On Thursday, we went out to dinner, intending to check out The Bund. However, once leaving the safety of the Shanghai Metro, we ran into a torrential downpour of rain. We had talked about seeing the Peace Hotel and getting a drink, and once we got there we decided to stay for food. This photo is from the next night, but we ate in a wonderful restaurant on the 9th floor.

The Fairmount Peace Hotel:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

The exterior shot doesn't do the place justice. The inside is gorgeously designed and decorated, and sadly another place that doesn't allow photography. But their website has a great photo of the lobby. When we got up to the Cathay Room and sat down for dinner, we were also treated to a view of The Pearl and Pudong at night. All of the lights, even in the clouds and rain, were lovely. And the food we had was all fantastic. I blew past my daily allowance for meals, but it was worth it!

Friday I was able to come home a bit early and go out with my mom. We both enjoy the kind of touristing where you just wander around, so we went back to the Nanjing Road area. I was hoping we would catch The Bund after sunset to witness the incredible lights of the city. That worked out really well!

Here's Nanjing Road at the end of the day:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

And, after walking a bit we decided we wanted to get dinner, so we found a restaurant located about this food market:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

After dinner, we came out to find the lit-up street I expected. This is a fun area to be at night!

Still on Nanjing Road:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

Signs:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

Mom and I, self-portrait:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

We also walked right past the newest, and largest, Apple store:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

A few blocks down the road, and we found ourselves on The Bund. Now, the Bund is quite a mixture of things. On the street you have the old European-style buildings looking gorgeous all lit up.

The street of European buildings:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

Then you have a huge pedestrian walkway on the river. And beyond that, you have Pudong, the new section of Shanghai that is complete with huge buildings, lots of lights, and animations galore (ON the buildings).

Pudong from the Bund:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

I personally find it impossible to see the view of Pudong and not feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie like Blade Runner or something. Especially with the hazy mist going on.

Here's a cool shot of the Chairman Mao statue and The Oriental Pearl Tower, from the pedestrian walkway area:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

I was pleasantly surprised that I was actually able to get some decent photos, and even captured the moon next to one of the most iconic buildings here, The Pearl.

Me by Pudong:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

World Financial Center and a couple other buildings. The Financial Center actually sparkles at the top!

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

Moon and Pearl:

From Nanjing Rd and The Bund - Shanghai

I have some more cool photos from the skyline, as well as a neat Art Deco building near the Bund all located here.

After some photo-taking, Mom and I returned to the hotel and had a relaxing night. Saturday, before I took mom to the airport, we were able to have a tasty dim sum lunch with Bruce and his wife, Mindy. That was fun, and also filling. I was really glad to have eaten a light breakfast! And while the food was very good, Mindy told me that Hong Kong is really the best place for dim sum, so I look forward to trying it when I go there in a few weeks!

After that, I accompanied mom to the airport and we said our goodbyes. A great visit to both Japan and Shanghai, and another fun mother-daughter adventure for us was complete. I feel fortunate that my mother and I are able to have such a great relationship, and have had the opportunity to visit many places around the world together. Here's to many more in the future!

Which brings us to today. Today I'm enjoying a Sunday of no plans and no work. Ahhhh...

Back in Shanghai, and doing some touristing!

After having a mellow recovery on saturday night, mom and I decided to get in some Shanghai sights on Sunday. I love Yuyuan Garden (the old swooping roofs are a favorite of mine) and also wanted to see the shopping streets nearby so we hopped on the ever-handy Metro and went over there.

I actually took a bunch of lovely photos for about 40 minutes before realizing that I had left my memory card in the laptop at home while working on a previous blog post. D'oh! Luckily, we hadn't gotten too far and I was able to walk back around and catch of few of the shots I missed before. I'm sure some good ones were lost, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I was just happy I realized it relatively early in the day, and not after we'd been out and about for 4 hours! (The resulting photo set is here)

So, we wandered around the general Yuyuan area for a while, being accosted left and right by extremely aggressive sales people hocking their wares and trying to badger us to go into their booths. I suppose the tactic must work on somebody, but I can't figure out who. I'm really firmly in the camp of, "the more you annoy me and the more rude you are, the less likely I am to buy something, even if it's something I REALLY want!" We walked by and tried to ignore them, and for the most part it works, but it gets old fast.

Thankfully, we were able to retreat to the solitude of the actual garden itself. It's a relatively small area, but quite lovely and I love the design of the buildings, the winding paths, and the many places to see different views of the gardens. Also, the many different door and window shapes are so neat!

Mom, enjoying the nice weather:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Me, in one of the great doorways:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

How great are the names of these parts of the garden??? I mean, "Big Rockery"? That's just an awesome name.

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Great roof:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Garden:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Little deer on top:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

I just LOVE this dragon:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Lanterns in Yuyuan:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Winding side-by-side walkways:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Once we had finished wandering around inside the garden, we went back out to the main tourist area so I could get some more photos. The central spot is this one, with it's lovely pond, amazing buildings, and winding bridge:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

There's also a great supply of fish, and a turtle!

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

The bridge:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Mom and the center tea house:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Capturing the old and new of Shanghai, the World Financial Center building (I affectionately think of it as the bottle-opener) appears on the left:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

And here I am, in this lovely setting:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Once we found our way out of the maze of buildings, having stopped to admire some of the wares but not really buying anything, we found ourselves in a mall. Sort of an outdoor mall. But it allowed me to buy a few clothing items, which were needed because I successfully packed light when coming here. We were also able to find a tasty restaurant to eat Hong Kong-style food in. We just had some dumplings and a great fried noodle dish, but it hit the spot!

In attempting to get back to the metro station without the benefit of a decent map, we happened upon the old shopping street that I had wanted to see. At this point we weren't quite in a shopping mood but it was really fun to walk down the street.

The street, and Pudong (new-section of Shanghai) buildings in the background:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Despite the lack-of-map, an innate sense of direction served us pretty well. Well, that and the fact that Shanghai has many metro stations and covers the area really well! I can also commend Shanghai Metro for its signage. When you're in the station, it becomes pretty obvious which way to go. Particularly thanks to things like this:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

and this:

From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011

Which brings us to the end of Sunday's adventuring. We did more relaxing in the evening, which was much needed because I returned to working on Monday. Our cousin Peter, who currently lives in Bangkok, arrived on Monday. So while I'm toiling away this week Peter and my mom can visit some of the other Shanghai sights. I think I'll still get in some adventuring this week, too, though!

Nara, Part 2, and a brief Osaka visit

I'm afraid the next part of our Nara adventure isn't nearly as filled with yellow hats. However, it is filled with gorgeous Japanese gardens and some other neat sights.

After leaving the Todai-ji Temple area, we spent some time trying to parse the three different maps we had in order to find the Isuien garden. One map made it look like it was further into the park, one map made it look like it was next to the temple, and one map didn't even show it. It took some extra effort to be able to match up points of interest on each map enough to figure out which direction to go.

Luckily, we're pretty good with spatial reasoning, mom and I, because soon we found ourselves on a tiny road:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And once we turned the corner, we saw the entrance to the Isuien Garden. We paid our fee, walked under a couple of trees, and came out to see this:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Walking down a few steps, it looked a bit more like this:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

It was really a lovely setting, with several main areas to walk around in. Mom and I were snapping photos left and right, and just enjoying how peaceful and well-designed it was.

And now, on with the photos! (There's not really much more to say, except that the rest of the photos, of which there are many, are all posted here)

Here I am in the front part of the garden:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

This is for my mother-in-law, Norma, lover of dragon-flies:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Moss-covered latern:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Lily pads:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Mom pauses as we head into the back area of the garden:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

The back part of the garden, using "borrowed" scenery of the large gate of Todai-ji, and the mountains in the distance:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

A hint of autumn:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And finally, moss in the dappled sun:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

We really enjoyed wandering around the garden and none of the photos could really do it justice. It was a gorgeous day and a lovely setting, and we were very glad we found this place that was a bit out-of-the-way.

Once we were leaving the garden, we decided to head back to our hotel via the downtown area, so we could seek out some lunch. We happened upon the 5-story pagoda, so of course we had to stop there.

5-story pagoda:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Then we walked a little further to see a pond, and a deer, walking down The 52 Steps:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

Looking back over the pond, the steps, and the pagoda:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

We happened upon a restaurant downtown that seemed to have some rice bowls of some sort, so we went in. It turned out that they had an english menu that didn't just let you order, it also explained some of the local dishes! What a find! Most of what we found in Japan was very little english, and what english there was wasn't very helpful. So, to find a description of the local dish and how to eat it was quite a treat!

I ended up ordering a tasty soup which also featured some kaki-no-hazushi on the side. This was pieces of sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves, which has the effect of preserving the fish. The soup was also super tasty! The dish at the top looks a bit like snot and has the texture, too, I'm not going to lie. However, it was pretty darn tasty. Though I couldn't bring myself to eat the whole thing because of the texture. But as I do in every place I travel... I tried it, and I was glad that I did!

Nara lunch:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

After lunch, we walked back to our hotel, via small streets like this one:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And we couldn't help but admire the man-hole covers:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And that was pretty much the end of Nara, because we returned to our hotel, picked up our stuff and were off to the train station to get to Osaka for our night-before-flying stay.

Oh, but can I just say, to all the American coffee shops that can't make a decent espresso drink, perhaps you should take lessons from Japan, because here's what we got IN THE TRAIN STATION coffee shop:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And they tasted as good as they looked, too!

Once into Osaka, we got to our traditional hotel and settled into our room before meeting friends for dinner. It was a lovely space (even though the futons didn't end up being thick enough for us to get a good night's sleep). But the best part of Osaka was getting to see Hiro-san and Shizuko-san (friends of Mom's whom I had also spent a couple of Christmas Eve dinners with), and Dylan, a friend of mine that I haven't seen since we graduated college! After not knowing anyone the entire trip, catching up with friends was a wonderful way to cap off the visit!

Traditional hotel room:

From Nara - October 7, 2011

And so our time in Japan was complete. We flew out of Osaka the next morning and made it back to Shanghai safely and uneventfully. While we chose to relax a bit on our Saturday return, stayed tuned for tales of Yu Yuan Gardens in Shanghai in our next adventure!