The Bund, The Carpet Factory, and Lunch in a Local Restaurant

Still May 19, 2014

Shanghai was my favorite city, and during our short time there we experienced more of the local architecture and city life than in any other place we visited.  After our tour of the Gardens, we had an opportunity to shop in a local silk market, where I picked up a couple of gifts.

Somewhere in there we had the opportunity to visit the Bund area during the day.  It's not as pretty as at night, but I'm still struck by the contrast between the old and the new architecture.  This area is popular with Chinese tourists as well as foreigners.

Jack's bus then delivered us to a local carpet factory, where we saw beautiful carpets being hand-made, with the opportunity to purchase (at a special discount, of course).  There were also beautiful hand-embroidered pieces available, some of which were just phenomenal in their dimension and realism.  The one of the tigers pictured below was so realistic that I wanted to touch the smooth fur of these gorgeous animals.

Lunch this day was on the first floor of this same carpet factory, where a huge Mongolian Barbecue restaurant was located.  As we entered, we split into two lines on either side of a long buffet, where the uncooked ingredients of our meal were chosen, along with sauces and a salad bar of sorts.  There were pork, beef, chicken, and lamb;  along with every imaginable vegetable (yay!), noodles, rice, and different sauces.  I selected a little pork and chicken (extremely thinly sliced in order to cook quickly), lots of veggies, and the combination sauce (augmented with a little ginger sauce and hot sauce), and took them to the smiling chef who tossed them around with huge chopsticks on the Mongolian grill until they were perfectly cooked.  We've all been to these grills here in the US, but it just seemed a little more authentic here.  Maybe it was because the guys wielding the chopsticks may have actually been Mongolian.  The food was delicious, and I went back for seconds and washed it all down with a somewhat cold Tsingtao.

After lunch, our bus took us along the Bund to another museum tour.  Several of us were "museumed out" so we asked our driver if he could drop us at the Westin, and he graciously complied.  In fact, only six of our group of thirty actually took this last museum tour.

Four of us decided to visit Nanjing Road, a famous shopping district near our hotel.  This road is closed to vehicles, and both sides of the now-pedestrian road are lined with stores of all types.  We stopped into a couple of brand-name stores where it was obvious that the products were counterfeits, albeit good ones.  In addition to high-end jewelry and clothing stores, there are also street vendors chasing us down to sell us toys for our grandkids.  "How many grandkids you have?"  "They love this!"  Jack's Chinese lessons served us well, as we smiled and said, "Bu Yao."

We were surprised at how crowded the area was for a Monday, when we thought most locals would be working.  It must have been some sort of a holiday, although we never figured out what.

After our shopping time, we headed back to the hotel to pack up for tomorrow's departure. and to get ready for our last evening in China.