Visiting The Bund

We slept in this morning, and then copped out and went to McDonald's for breakfast!  There was supposed to be a fantastic brunch at another local restaurant that we were all looking forward to.  However, we turned up at 9:15, starving, and they told us that they didn't open until 10am!  So we thought we'd hang out at the local Starbucks - guess what, they don't open until 10am either!  Heresy!  So we traipsed about 10 hot blocks to McDonald's where Sophie played on the indoor play equipment while we ate. 

After carefully disinfecting Sophie, we hopped in a cab and headed for The Bund, a touristy area of Shanghai.  It is an embankment along Zhongshan Road on the west side of the Huangpu river.  You can look across and see the whole city, and it really is beautiful!

 

Jack posed by the railing, enjoying the scenery.

Suddenly, the rain started coming down, down, down, and the umbrella prices went up, up, up!  We bought two for 10 kaui each (about $1.50) - highway robbery as far as we were concerned, but we grudgingly payed it to a little old lady who had a big smile on her face.  I told her it was her lucky day.

 

Sophie enjoyed the first few raindrops!

 

Peter enjoyed walking along The Bund too, people watching and getting accosted by merchants who wanted to sell us "real" Rolex watches.

 

Sue and Sophie drying out, after the rain.

 

Peter loves to ham it up for the camera!

 

Of course, Jack didn't want to be left out!

We stopped at an ice cream shop that was very artistic about their ice cream cones.  Every cone we got was perfectly shaped like a rose.  Delicious ice cream, too!

 

We went to the Shanghai Aquarium on the other side of the river.  Peter loved it, but Jack was bored.

 

Peter said he wants an aquarium with lots of plant life.  Only if he gets a good job, he says, because it will be expensive.

 

Here's an aquarium that Peter really liked -

 

Much of the aquarium was arched walkways that ran "undersea" in the aquariums.  We were pressed pretty tight amongst everyone else as we looked at turtles, sharks, rays, and many other species of fish.

 

Here is one of the entrances to the "undersea" part of the exhibit.

Crummy picture, but interesting shark!  I never knew there was such a thing!  Unfortunately I forgot my camera back at the room today, so I just had Sue's point-and-shoot!

 

Here's the ham, doing his thing again!

... and more Aqua Pics!

At lunch, we ordered a dish that I THOUGHT was chicken and mushrooms.  Turns out, it was chicken FEET and mushrooms.  Crunchy!  Here I am trying the delicacy.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 0.5!

   

Tonight we'll continue to work on lesson plans for this next week, and figure out something for dinner.  It certainly is weird to not have cooked, cleaned or driven for the last 3 weeks!  The taxis here are plentiful and very efficient.  Generally to get across the city we spend about $3 - $4, one way.  I don't think I would want to drive myself in the traffic.  Stoplights, crosswalks and lane markings all seem to be more like good suggestions than rules; to be obeyed or not if it is convenient.

Yesterday, our cab was following a police car who was going slower than we were.  Our driver passed him on the left, crossing the yellow line.  In the US he would have gone to jail; here it's just part of the flow.