Shanghai Museum and Yu Gardens

Saturday I toured the Shanghai Museum with Madam Jia and one of her assistants from the University. Madam Jia has worked for the university for over 30 years and acts as their unofficial ambassador to the world. The Shanghai Museum is the nicest museum in Shanghai with four floors of jade, pottery, calligraphy, painting, furniture and costumes. The museum had audio tours available in English that I used. All the descriptions were in English and Chinese, however. In the furniture area, I saw a real Chinese musical instrument (for my brothers and sisters, this is an inside joke). I also learned that bamboo is a symbol for a good man: flexible yet principled.

After the museum we ate lunch at a famous restaurant near the Yu Gardens. The Gardens are 300-year old gardens created by a noble as a sign of his wealth. We didn't tour the gardens since I had already seen the gardens at Suzhou (see earlier post), which are much larger.

Near the Gardens has sprung a shopping bazaar that has the feel of Disneyland, a mecca for both Chinese and foreigner tourists. Madam Jia knows several shopkeepers and restaurant owners and got us a table without a wait. The line had about 40-50 people in it. The restaurant was mentioned in my travel book as one of the best restaurants to sample Shanghai's specialty - dumplings. Beijing is known for duck, Shanghai for the dumplings. The lunch was excellent, which also included noodles, vinegar covered vegetables, thinly sliced beef, and cooked beans/peas. I couldn't tell the difference and I ate the whole pod, until Madam Jia told me to eat only the bean/pea inside. The dumplings were of four varieties - pork, female crab, male crab and vegetable - and were served throughout the meal in stackable steamers. Yes, the female crab and the male crab tasted slightly different. Madam Jia and her assistant tried to explain why, but it would be hard to re-explain.

After lunch we did some shopping, where I bought scarves and some knick-knacks for the kids. I also picked up a bag of bite-sized Dove chocolate bars to give to the De Vries family on Sunday. Because it was Saturday, the Yu Gardens was packed, and Susan, Madam Jia's assistant taught me a new phrase "bu you" (boo yo), which means I don't need it. Very handy to ward off the onslaught of Rolex salespeople.

As the taxi dropped us off at the hotel, Madam Jia pointed out a second cafeteria used by university students just across the street from my hotel. She introduced me to the guard and told him it was OK for me to eat there. The public isn't allowed. This cafeteria will be more convenient for me at dinner time. Cost for dinner is $0.90, which includes a full tray of food. There's also a washing machine and dryer which will save a little money from the hotel laundry service.

Today, Sunday, I visited the Urban Planning museum in the morning. The museum is much more interesting than it sounds. The place is dedicated to showing the urban expansion of Shanghai and specifically how it is preparing for the World Expo in May-October 2010. The museum includes a room-size model of the city of Shanghai as it will look in 10 years if all the planned buildings are completed. When I say room-size, I mean about half the size of standard basketball court - this thing is HUGE!

After the museum I attended church, where they had their Christmas program. The service was very international with both prayers in Chinese and singing in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and English. I have a pinyin copy of Come All Ye Faithful if you're interested. I sang in the choir, which was pretty cool. Since the church is not your typical building, we rotated the chairs on the front right section of the room and that made a choir loft.

After church I strolled the Bund, took the Shanghai Tourist Tunnel (what a waste, but I had to try it), and then took the bus back to Pudong.

I got off the bus two stops early, on purpose. Just walking through Shanghai you see a big contrast between very rich and very poor. The very rich congregate at the Supermall near the closest metro stop to my hotel. The Supermall is 13 stories (2.3 million square feet) of shopping extravaganza with prices comparable to Seattle's Pacific Place Mall. Shanghai has even ritzier shopping, too on the Puxi side of the river. Contrasting the mall are the workers building new roadways and repairing existing ones even late in the evening on Sundays. You can see it in their faces they have led a hard life.