Shanghai… Dreamin’

We were traveling around China, last year with a group of friends.

It has always been a dream of mine to visit the Far East. So we went online and found a Chinese company; China Tours Tailor.

They were efficient, very reasonable and everything was included. My husband and I aren’t partial to organized tours; we like to “poke around” the place on our own. But going to China without any knowledge of the language seemed very daunting.

My Jade sister Jo and her friend joined us from Britain and we made a very noisy foursome.

We started our tour in Beijing. There were seven of us, a very mixed international group. 1 American, 1 Venezuelan/Brit (me), 2 Brits, 1 Iraqi/German, and 2 California/Cantonese.

After an evening meal of snake (yes… my husband and my Jade sister, Jo, actually ate SNAKE!!!) we set out for our journey visiting, Beijing, Xian, Guillin, Yangshuo and Shanghai.

Here are some of the highlights. I can only get a few in here as the list is endless!

• The Great Wall is literally wall-to-wall people from every country in the world!

• The Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms. The number 9 is a good luck symbol in China.

• Xian. Looking at the Terra Cota statues in a book is one thing looking seeing them LIVE is quite an experience. There are thousands of them and each one is different and they STILL haven’t unearthed all of them!

• We took a Trip on the canal in Suzhou and the gondolier entertained us singing old Chinese songs.

Here are some of the incidents that show the east-west connection that still make me smile:

• Going into a Starbucks in Shanghai and finding everyone lining up for Cappuccinos. We met a Chinese man that worked there and spoke fluent English. He asked us if we know the owner of Starbucks: Bill Gates!!

• Loosing my husband in the crowds at the forbidden city and the tour guide telling me that we will never find him because “All Westerners look the same.”

• Watching the Chinese eat a whole shrimp. It goes in their mouth whole and the shell comes whole!

• Walking into a restaurant and drawing pictures of chicken and bottled water so we can place an order and be understood.

• Buying a silk rug in Shanghai felt like I was on ‘Deal or No Deal.’

• And… Shanghai… what a city. The modern buildings are breathtaking! The landscape changes so often that even a taxi driver doesn’t know his way around.

One of the most interesting parts of this amazing city is the Pudong and the Bund laying side by side divided by the Huangpu River. Pudong is the ever-changing modern part of Shanghai and the Bund is the preserved old city.

The Bund once was home to numerous banks and trading houses from different countries in the world and in the Chinese 1940’s was one of the major banking financial centers of the world.

The Pudong is presently China’s financial hub. Pudong is home to the Lujiazui financial district and a skyline that includes the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Jin Mao Tower, that is the symbol of Shanghai and China's economic development.

We also visited the Jade Buddha Temple, The Yu Gardens and the Shanghai Museum.

It doesn’t take long to find a place for yourself over here. Shangahi is home to expatriates from many countries and therefore for the first time in 2 weeks we finally were hearing languages we could understand and ate a burger with fries!!!!


TTYL