China Trip, Day 8 - Aug 1

Our last full day in China started with breakfast at the New Mayfair, which actually wasn't that great. Some people chose to eat at other establishments, Aisling had pancakes at MacDonalds and Siegrid had a red bean scone at Starbucks. We went to the Shanghai Museum. On the drive to the museum we started to see what Shanghai looks like. There are an incredible number of skyscrapers, and mostly they look fabulous. It's much nicer than Beijing. Shanghai is divided by a river, and one side of the river is new Shanghai, a lot of skyscrapers, all built since 1990. We also saw the Shanghai Expo, which was built in the 60s with help from a Soviet architect, so it looks very Russian. Jenny told us that we would have two hours in the Shanghai museum, and asked if that would be enough. We indicated that it would be, and she told us that when Bill Clinton was in Shanghai, he was scheduled to spend two hours in the museum, but ended up basically spending all day there. However, when George W. Bush went to Shanghai, he skipped the museum altogether!

The museum was in a beautiful building, four floors, very airy. It had many interesting exhibits. One of my favorites was the room with artifacts from the Chinese ethnic minorities, including the Mongols and Manchurians. I also enjoyed the calligraphy and painting, both of which were quite beautiful. In the jade area, there were carved pieces of jade from the 23rd century B.C. I also really liked the furniture, especially an exhibit of miniature furniture carved for an eighth level administrator, a person in charge of cooking condiments for an emperor, which he had buried with him. In addition to a miniature of a house and other buildings, there were several miniature carved soldiers that went along with the miniature. Gordon loved the museum, and could have spent all day there, but we had to leave to go to our next destination, a silk carpet factory. That was really not that great, although the carpets did feel very soft and looking at some of the really old carpets was interesting. We ate lunch in the same building as the carpet factory, it was Mongolian barbecue, which was different and pretty good.

We got back on the bus to get to our next destination, the Yu Ling Garden market. On the drive, Jenny went back to the marriage topic, telling us that in China, Shanghai men are considered to be good catches - they cook, clean and generally take care of things. We again got another decent look at Shanghai, quite a fabulous city, but with terrible traffic! We arrived at the Yu Ling gardens, which is a lovely rebuilt complex, very traditional looking buildings with ponds, lotus, and Chinese architecture. It's a shopping complex with lots of shopping options. A great deal of bargaining went on - special price for us - and people wrapped up their souvenir shopping. It was thoroughly enjoyable, however, because of the variety of shops, the street food (we got a sweet pancake) and the architecture. It was thoroughly packed with tourists, however, both Chinese and foreign. After our shopping, we went to dinner at another nice restaurant, where we had a lecture by a professor from a Chinese University, giving advice on doing business in China. It was very interesting, and she made lots of good points, including discussing cultural differences between China and the west.


After dinner we went on a night cruise on the Huangpu river to see Shanghai. This was the highlight of Shanghai, I think. As I mentioned, on one side of the river is old Shanghai, with the famous street called the Bund. The Bund has older buildings with a colonial feel. I believe that they have mostly been converted to high end stores now, but at night they are beautifully lit up and look fabulous from the boat. The other side of the river is new Shanghai, all skyscrapers, all built since 1990. Some of the most impressive ones include the Oriental Pearl television tower (pictured), tallest in the Asia at 468 meters, with eleven steel spheres, which is very futuristic in its appearance. Then there's the Jin Mao tower, over 90 stories, with a Chinese flair. I understand that it had a starring role in Mission Impossible III. And finally there is the International Finance Center, currently under construction, slated to become possibly the tallest building in the world (pictured at right, between the buses).

After the cruise, we went back to the hotel, and Gordon, Aisling and I headed down the street to a massage parlor to get a cheaper massage than we got at the hotel. Aisling and I went together, she got a back massage and asked for the cupping option and I got a ginger foot massage. Aisling's back massage seemed like it went well, although somehow a back massage included her legs and feet, and I had a very hard time explaining that they should not massage her broken foot. After her massage, the masseur went ahead with the cupping, which is a form of acupressure called Gua Sha. He brought in about 10 jars, and then got a long stick, attached some cotton wool and lit it. He put the flame inside a jar, pulled it out and immediately put the jar on her back. He did this with each ten jars. Because the flame created a vacuum in the jar, it stuck to her back and caused her flesh to bubble up. It looked so weird! Then when he took the jars off, she still had little circles on her back.

My foot massage was almost as weird. First, he brought in a barrel filled it water and plugged it in. I put my feet in there, and let them steam. At some point, it just got too hot, and I had to ask him to turn it down. Then he started to massage my feet. He noticed that I had a lot of hard skin on my feet (all that walking in China) and so he asked if I wanted my feet scraped. I said sure, and he went out and got the scraping tools. When he brought them back, I was beginning to regret saying yes. They were essentially straight edge razors of varying lengths. His only English word was "relax", which he used many times when scraping my feet. Then he asked if I wanted my toenails cut, I said sure, and he actually used one of the razors to cut my toenails! I think he was the number 1 foot scraper in China. When he was finished with the massage, he went and got a ginger substance that he slathered all over my legs, and then covered with very hot towels. My legs got very hot, and I couldn't actually make it to the scheduled end of the treatment!

Gordon was still getting his massage when we left, so when he was done he asked at the reception desk where were the two women he was with, and they thought he was asking for the "home service". We all got back to the hotel pretty late and I packed Aisling up for the flight home.