We visited the Lion Forest Garden, a scenic location that was supposedly a favorite holiday resort for the empress. Here stones in the shape of lions (apparently transported from the sea) were placed in the gardens for the emperor and empress's enjoyment.
So huge were some of the stones that they formed small mountains with labyrinths in which one could climb and walk through. These were actually limestone mountains and rocks eroded into their present shapes by the elements.
It was here I go to know the oldest member of our group, an 80 plus grandmother with 12 children (including 2 pairs of twins)! She could still walk although she needed some support holding on to her granddaughter who followed her for the tour. This is one thing I like about group tours - making new friends.
Again we were taken to 3 shopping places:
1. Silk Museum - I have been to a silk shop in Beijing but not like this one. At the shop in Beijing we were only shown the loom as an exhibit. Here at Shanghai the silk museum was actually the factory where the silk was harvested from the cocoons of live silkworms. We picked out the greenish bluish worms squirming between our fingers. Fear factor anyone? Just put them in your mouth!
We saw how the good silkworm casings were separated from the bad ones. Then the casings were soaked in hot water and the threads separated at a long loom. One by one the silk threads gradually formed a half-opaque silk blanket that could be stretched by hand on all sides. The silk blanket were then placed inside silk bed-sheets thus making silk spreads. This was real-life not just an exhibits!
So good was this place that our tour members must have spent RMB20k buying silk bed-sheets, bed-spreads, pillows, pillow-covers, comforters, mattress protectors at the silk shops. The grandmother also bought some lovely silk blouses too.
No wonder the tour guide was smiling from cheek to cheek!
2. We were then taken to a jade museum. Here a charming man (he says he is one of the partners) married to a Malaysian with a house in Taynton View gave us a talk on feng shui (most of the time I really don't know what he is saying though)! He took up about an hour and half of our time extolling the virtues of jade and telling stories.
All I know is that the jade pendants are really expensive. They cost something like RMB44k to RMB100k (divide by half to get the RM)! Break it and you probably would have to break your savings to pay them back!
3. We were again taken shopping this time to a medical shop known as TongRen Healthcare. Eager to close a sale, they felt my pulse and said that I should avoid animal innards (actually I have no taste for these things) and they told Tim to avoid fried things. However all their diagnosis seem to be the same for almost everyone!
The cream for burns and arthritis plasters were good but unfortunately they were not willing to sell them piecemeal even though our group wanted to buy 9 of the cream!
2 by 2 we were then taken into consultation cubicles by the Chinese sinsehs present.
One of the Chinese sinseh wanted to recommend Chinese herbs worth RMB400 a month for Tim! We made a hasty retreat.
The highlight of Shanghai was the bus ride passing the Bund and the boat ride on the Huangpu River. The Bund is a gorgeous wall complete with flowers and leaves that made patterns on it lining the main street of Shanghai commercial district.
It was beautiful and stunning to see the commercial buildings (including the Shanghai Tower) lighted up at night along the river banks. With orange, blue, red, pink, green, purple, grey and many colored hues with many designs and patterns - all of us agreed that this was the icing on the cake, the best part of the whole tour!
The boat cruise took us about an hour and God was good in giving us clear weather so that we could take clear shots of the lighted buildings.
We stayed the night at the elegant Rayfont Shanghai Xuhui Hotel.
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