Aphorisms of Tully Mars: Day 9 – The Last Day of Organization and the Beginning of Indecisive Stagnation

Day 9 – The Last Day of Organization and the Beginning of Indecisive Stagnation

10/20/2009 02:50:00 PM Tully Mars

We begin our Shanghai experience by being taken to the Bund for a nice stroll along the financial center of China only to realize the entire walk is under construction for the upcoming 2010 World Expo. The walkway along the river and the Bund so famous in pictures is now being changed and cannot be accessed. This is the first time, I have been disappointed and honestly a little ticked off with the tour. They knew the construction was active and yet they kept this as part of the tour package. We stopped along the one of the river crossings and walked a short distance to take a couple pictures of the famous TV tower and the tallest building in China. A total of thirty minutes was the entire Bund tour and a huge anticlimax to the end of what has been so far a nice tour.

We ended up killing time at a local “western” shopping center (which knowing about comes in handy later on in our visit). While heading over to the area, we have our first day of “blue sky” weather and Tricia promised a friend that we would take lots of photographs of the unique architectural buildings. She is an architect and appreciates the various building structures, so we used this opportunity to fulfill a friend’s request.

Lunch time was spent at a silk rug factory where we got to see some really cool and VERY expensive Chinese rugs. Tricia’s mom loves this type of stuff, so we took lots of photographs of the processes. Sean and I even did a video of a 2’ x 3’ $3,000 rug, showing how it refracts the light and changes shades depending on the angle that the light hits it. It was all very interesting and especially learning that some of those rugs take as much as 10 months to make by hand. They do not have equipment or machinery to perform this work, so all the rugs are hand made by artisans.

The afternoon was really cool as we spent our time in the Shanghai Museum looking over Chinese silk art, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, seals, furniture, currencies and sculptures. Sean just loved it! Can you hear the sarcasm in my writing? He did however provide lots of entertaining comments about what exactly the calligraphy meant or how it translated to English. It’s always an adventure traveling with the boys, because they bring their own brand of fun and entertainment along for the ride.

We skipped the rest of the tour because Tricia was getting worried about finding out exactly where everyone else was and getting the scope on the timing for meeting for the wedding. So we left our guide and the rest of the group around 5:30 saying our good-byes and honestly starting to miss our newly formed friendships we’ve created during the trip. Everyone exchanged emails so we can get back in touch with our new traveling friends.

Now began the second phase of our adventure – the fun family experiences. Sitting around in our hotel room until about 7:45 waiting for another phone call from “the sisters”, we got some needed rest and updates from the internet. Since we paid extra for the access to the internet, we were going to use the heck out of it at every opportunity! We all took turns checking on things that needed to be checked out and trying to get updates from the states.

Finally the phone rang and we found out where to meet everyone for a late dinner at Pizza Hut – LOL! We hooked up with family on Nanjing Lu, a famous shopping strip in Shanghai and a “must see” for all tourist who come here. Sean again did his sticker thing and we got the photograph. My guess is 30 minutes after he put it up the sticker was removed by someone and the shopping area restored to its perfection. Dessert was at the now famous, Hagen Das Ice Cream parlor where Sean and I split a “sushi” ice cream dish for roughly $10.