My Family-: Day 2

Day 2- Shanghai

We woke up the next morning and got everything all packed up and ready to go. We checked out of the hotel and left our luggage with the baggage claim for the day. Our flight wasn't leaving until midnight and we didn't want to have to carry it around with us.

We got a taxi over to the Bund, or historical part of Shanghai, again and decided to do a little shopping. We started by going down a couple rows of street shopping. They had all the normal junk from Mexico and MORE. :) We had a blast trying to barter and get them to come down to our price. It surprised me how into Angry Birds every store was. They had clothes, backpacks, toys, pens, magnets, and school supplies. We walked along and picked up a couple toys for the kids. Rhett bought a watch from someone carrying it in his little briefcase. This is still a sore subject because not only is the watch crap, but when he gave us our change he gave us Russian money which no one takes or exchanges. Little con artist. His lazy eye was so distracting that when he switched us our Yuan for Russian money we didn't even notice! :)

We had bought fruit smoothies on the way over to the shopping and let me tell you- Chinese do NOT know how to make a fruit smoothie. It was more like water with a mango aftertaste. Poor Fabi had ordered pineapple and papaya and learned that they have two names for pineapple. If you just say pineapple it means you want pear, but if you say puu then you want pineapple?!? Hmm, that sounds like a scam if I have ever heard one. Anyway the water juice was pretty gross so we were all starving. We saw a KFC and got totally excited for lunch. There was a guy that James had been talking to so when me and Fabi walked in the store he touched my arm and said, "I'll wait right here for you." "Okay, whatever!" It would have made more sense if we had known James had been talking to him. We just thought he was a little creepy! :)

We ordered a box of chicken. It came with 3 cokes, and a small roll. No sides though. It was sort of weird to be eating JUST CHICKEN! It tasted so good though. Nothing like something familiar when you are starving.

On the way out there was this lady holding her unconscious baby that broke my heart. She was begging for money and it just tore me up seeing this poor baby that we all donated to the cause.

After that the same guy was still outside waiting for us. He took us around to all these fun hidden shops. He went to show the guys some stuff for iphones and then he had Fabi and I come with him. As we were walking down a tiny little alley going deeper and farther from the guys we started to get a little nervous. He was right there to assure us in his broken English, "It okay. You safe wit me." Yikes! Now that I look back that could have been a really scary situation. He seemed nice enough though. I mean he had waited for us to finish eating. :)

Anyway, we ended up in a store full of designer purses and watches. We each picked out a new coach purse and he assured us countlessly, "It's real." Yeah, real fake! :) It is a fun, pretty little thing though and as long as nobody else thinks it's fake I'm good, right?

After that, the boys bought new head phones and Rhett bought a really great North Face coat. Me and Fabi also had fun buying hair extensions and outfits for the kids. :)

After all that shopping we headed over to the beautiful Yuyuan Gardens. We loved walking and seeing the cool architecture of the buildings. We made our way up to this old tea house. This tea house was 180 years old and people from all across the world come to do the tea ceremony. It is said to bring you luck through your lifetime. Fabi and James love tea so we obviously had to do the ceremony. It was fun to watch as they made us 13 different types of tea. They were all herbal and had different uses and meanings. We don't drink tea normally nor do we like it, but it was cool to see James and Fabi enjoying the different flavors so much.

After the tea ceremony we headed back over to the Huangpu River for the tour we had missed the night before. It was relaxing and by this time I was very much in need of a chair to sit and chill for a little bit. The tour got a little boring towards the end so Rhett made up this fun game where he would pick out somebody on the shore and we would all wave to them until they waved back. Every single person waved back to us EXCEPT one. He knew it was him that we were waving to, but just wouldn't do it. Several other people on the ship joined in on the fun and waved right along with us.

Side Note- I am going to stereotype the Chinese people for just a second. Please don't take this personally anyone... this was just my own observation. Chinese people are rude! I am so used to the Japanese that are overly kind and would slam on their breaks on the freeway to let someone in. Chinese people at least in Shanghai were rude. They have no concept of what a line is and they push a lot. I think this may be do to the crazy population and they just have to fend for themselves, but seriously they need to learn some manners. I'll throw out just a few examples even though I could go on and on about this subject. First, I was waiting in front of a stall in the restroom for my turn to go. Two ladies ran right around me to get in when it opened it. I mean come one. Wait your turn. Second, we all were waiting for an elevator and we were directly in front of it having learned our lessons earlier in the day. They shoved me as it opened up just to run and get in. Third, when we were at KFC and even though there were four registers open there were no lines. It was just a mosh of people clawing to get to the front. There were at least 12 people standing right at the front bar just hoping to order next. It was mass chaos. Grr... I am a person that likes my personal space and Shanghai was not the place to get it!

Back to the day- After we did the boat tour we headed to the French Colonial part of the city and had dinner at this AMAZING Greek restaurant. It was so good! This side of the city was absolutely gorgeous and you could really tell that they cared about presentation. I wish we had spent more time in this area. It was so great! The food was amazing. The restaurant was on the second floor overlooking a road and the weather was perfect for outside dining!

We then headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage. After being out in the heat and humidity all day we were all in dire need of a shower. We begged the front desk to let us run up to the spa showers and they obliged. It was nice to get a quick shower in before heading to the airport. It was a fun filled day and we were all tired. Our plane left at midnight heading to Singapore.