Family Reunion in Shanghai China March 2005

Over the Easter Holy Week break, Ray’s mom, sister, brother-in-law and nephew flew to Shanghai for a week long tour of China along with our family. The first night, we just got our bearings and laid low so that the group coming from the US had a chance to adjust their biological clocks after the 20-hour trip through 14 time zones. We did walk out Nanjing Road, a long international shopping area that stretches from People’s Park (near our hotel) to the Bund. With all the familiar western stores and restaurants with their English language signs in addition to all the Chinese characters (or Hanzi), we felt both at home and on the other side of the world.

We had set up some tours through an on-line website and had our own English speaking tour guide and private tour bus. When we left the hotel the first morning, a large 25-passenger coach bus was waiting for us. I questioned if others were going to join us, and found out that it was just us! We had a full schedule of places to go and see and plenty of room to do it with.

We visited many temples and gardens. The temples are large and filled with burning incense. Offerings that are made at the altars include money, script (pretend money) and food. The temples were very wide open and busy as people were moving in and out on their own schedules.

We also visited YuYuan Gardens, which is both a garden area and shopping area. The garden area behind the gates is full of trees and vegetation. In front of the garden area is a large pond that is criss-crossed by bridges and walkways. This whole area is surrounded by a popular tourist shopping area where you can by souvenirs such as pearls, local handicrafts, china dolls, and clothing.

One of the famous areas in Shanghai is the Bund. Bund means bend and it is literally the bend in the Yangtze River. On one side of the river is the old town (Puxi) and includes many building built in the early 1900’s. At night they are lit up and you would almost believe you are somewhere in Europe. The other side of the river is the new side of town (Pudong). Most of it has been built since the early 1990’s when the first major bridge was completed. The intent was to relieve some of the congestion on the older Puxi side. While on the Pudong side, we went up into the Oriental Pearl TV tower and got a great bird’s eye view of the city. Although it was a little smoggy, we could see a long distance, and could really understand why this area was called the Bund as the river makes a very large 180 degree turn.

One of the lighter moments occurred during one of our evening activities when we went to the Shanghai Center Theatre at People's Square to watch the Shanghai Acrobatic Troup. We were there early and had some front row seats, so I wanted to get some photos of our family waiting for the show to begin. I went up beside the stage and stepped into an area that was cut open in the stage and immediately fell from view. I had stumbled into the orchestra pit! I emerged to a nice ovation from the people in the audience.

Another highlight of the trip was our day tour to Suzhou, which has been called the Venice of China, as it is a city built in and around the waterways. It is about 100 kilometers from Shanghai to Suzhou, and took about 2-1/2 hours to get there. We stopped at one of the rest stops and had our first exposure to the eastern trough toilets. From that point on, we never let a western toilet go by unused.

Once we arrived, we boarded a flat bottom boat for our trip through the canals. Sometimes, there does not appear to be enough room to fit a pair of boats past each other in the canal. There are boats, both power and manual boats, tied up all along the route as people live right on the waterways. We got out of the boat and walked down one of the streets paralleling the waterway and entered Tiger Hill. Tiger hill is a man-made burial mound with a height of about 120’. The most visible landmark here sitting on the top the mound is the Tiger Hill pagoda, rising another 160’ feet above the mound. It is also known as the Suzhou’s Leaning Tower as it is tilted a little over 3.5 degrees (about 10’ from center line at the top). There are also waterfalls and walkways going up and down Tiger Hill which made for an enjoyable stop.

Our last stop was at the Humble Administrator's Garden. This was a beautiful garden area that included foliage, historic buildings and a large pond area with many walkways to allow for reflection and tranquility. One interesting sign that we was on the way in said "No Naked Fires". We thought about it for a while and determined it meant no open fires, but enjoyed the translation

Due to the road construction between Suzhou and Shanghai, our 2-1/2 hour trip became over a 4-hour trip going back to Shanghai. Thank goodness we were not driving and we had a lot of room in the bus. It seemed like there was one stretch of about an hour were we moved less than a mile, keeping a large billboard in site for a very extended period of time.

In addition to the historical sites, we also made a few stops at local factories that allowed you to watch craftsmen at work, and then of course purchase their wares at the end of the tour. The silk factory was one of the most interesting tours. We watched how the silk was unwound from the silkworms cocoon and then turned into thread and eventually fabric. The conjoined cocoons are pulled apart rather than unwound and are actually used to make the interior of silk comforters. We got to stretch some cocoons over a bed-sized frame. A comforter is made up of many layers of stretched silk. Although very light, they offer tremendous warmth.
With the completion of the Shanghai portion of the trip, we loaded up and headed to Beijing.