Hangzhou - Day 8

My, oh my, another big city but what a beautiful one! The main attraction, the lake and surrounding area, is sure worth a visit. We were quite amazed.

Getting Around:

Getting around in Hangzhou as a tourist is pretty easy. There is now a spanking brand new subway that is still being expanded. Don’t be tempted by the subway to stay too far out. To get to the East Hangzhou Station from the main station takes at least 20 minutes if not more! And the stations seem to be miles apart (as they seem to be in most of China).

Hangzhou Metro Station

There are also some “tourist” buses that will take you from the main station to all the main attractions around the lake and all the way to the Yinglin temple (the subway doesn't go out that way). As usual you can buy a travel card. I apologize, but I was visiting relatives and was not allowed to purchase any tickets, anywhere, so I have no idea how much they cost or where to get them from. It might even be possible to use the same card as you did in Shanghai but don't quote me on it. 

Note that the some of the bus routes that are in the current Lonely Planet, China (2013) are already outdated. We caught the Y tourist bus at the main station and it took us all the way around the lake and ended up at the Yinglin temple. 

There is a great bike rental system, which we didn't get the chance to use. They red bikes of all sizes including kids bikes so it's all totally family friendly. The first hour is apparently free so you could technically keep returning the bike every hour and pay nothing for it. I don't remember seeing any tandem bikes but that doesn't mean they don't have them. 

Hotel:

Can't help you with this one! Except to say that you should stay somewhere close to town to save on travelling time. It can take a while to get around Hangzhou. Not because the transport is bad but because it is so HUGE. 

The itinerary below is not exactly what we did. Since we were staying with relatives we had to do some obligatory visits and that meant that we couldn't see all we wanted to. 

Day 8: 

You absolutely have to go and visit the Lingyin Temple. It is amazing but not cheap. Try to get there early before it gets too crowded. Take the tourist bus from the train station to its last stop at the temple scenic area. Take note, that unlike in Europe, in China cars get the closest to the entrance. If you take a bus you’ll end up walking quite a ways. I found this totally annoying! I’m guessing if you own a car, you are wealthy and thus should not be made to walk to far. If you’re taking the bus well then you can walk too! After you get off the bus it’s a bit confusing as to where to go. Basically the ticket office is to the left (when standing in the direction in which the bus arrived) so just go in that general direction. You’ll find it eventually, right opposite a Häagen-Dazs store and some toilets. Take note that this ticket gets you into the scenic area and not into the temple itself. The temple requires a separate ticket.

Once you have your "scenic area" ticket you have to take a picture of yourself with what we liked to call the dragon turtle. He’s sitting in his own small pavilion holding up something or the other. After you've taken the photo, and passed the pavilion, turn left and then right to enter into the paid area.
Once you are in you just follow the crowd. You will soon come upon heaps of Buddhist reliefs (470 in total) in the rocks. You can’t miss them, there are so many of them. All types of Bodhisattvaya's look down at you from the hill which has a bubbling stream, full of red carp, at its foot.

We decided to climb up the hill where the reliefs were. At the top there was nothing but mosquito’s so we came  down pretty quickly. There is no view. This is the so called "Feilai Peak" and legend has it that it was transported here from India. Unless you enjoy clambering up a hill just for the sake of it, like we do, you might want to skip the walk.

Once we were down we bought our tickets and went into the temple. We were each given a few free sticks of incense to burn. It is very clear where you can burn them and if you are observant you will see how to light them without any matches! Although borrowing some matches is much more efficient.

The temple is really huge and we walked all the way to the top taking the left hand side in on the way up. Just before the top, on the right hand side, there is a small pavilion where we sat down to eat our vegetarian dumplings that we had brought for lunch. If you didn't bring any food pick up something from the many stores before you get into the temple. There are vegan options too although the "tofu on a stick" was not very tasty.

After this welcoming break we walked continued to the highest shrine. In the left hand shrine you will find the only female statue in the temple!

Down the hill we went taking in the other side of the temple. Our girls enjoyed hiding coins into the facade at the foot of one of the staircases. It seemed like this was the thing to do! It’s kind of like the equivalent of throwing coins into a pond.

If you have more time I would definitely recommend visiting the rest of the scenic area. There is a cable car to take you to the top of one of the peaks which apparently has really good views of the area and of course there are many more temples. We didn't have time to do this because we had promised to meet up with my husband’s dad and aunt. 

But leave enough time for a short hike (2 - 3 km, some of it uphill) in the hills above the west lake. Take the non-tourist bus K7 from the temple. The bus leaves from the bus stand which is a bit along from where you got off the bus in the morning. You need to get out just before you arrive at the lake and the bus stop is across the road from a huge KFC and at a junction with a road heading up the hill (which incidentally is the road you have to walk up). On the corner opposite the KFC is the mausoleum. 

After finding our way to the mausoleum we walked up the trail to find the caves, look over the lakes and ogle at the pagoda. The trail starts out as a road on the west side of the mausoleum (or east of KFC!). Walk up the road and just keep going straight until the road turns into a well-kept, wide footpath. And let me tell you, the best part about this trail is that there is hardly anyone there. In fact it was so empty that we found it a bit spooky at first. The nature on this small hill is incredible and you cannot imagine that you are just a stone throw away from xxx million people. 

Beware! There are lots of mosquito's get your repellent on before you start walking up the hill. 

Once you've arrived at what seems like the top of the stairs you will see signs to a teahouse. If you are interested in seeing the Ziyun cave then just follow this sign. 

Foot of the Stairs to the Teahouse

You will come across a teahouse (and some unused but well-kept toilets). Walk into the teahouse court yard and head for the left hand corner where you will see a small doorway. Through this door you first enter a shrine area under a rock overhang. 

Don’t be shy, walk down those stairs and wonder around in the catacomb of passages in the cave. We spent our time wondering what they could have been used for in the olden days. Smuggling, hiding from invaders, to attack, to hide treasures, …

Wondering back down the stairs we returned to the path. Here we found it a bit difficult, there are so many junctions, so many paths going off, so many signboards, we were really not sure which road to take. The correct one is the one that goes off up the hill on the opposite side to the caves. Up and up until, on the ridge, the lake suddenly emerges. 

We turned left and walk along the ridge until we came upon the sunrise terrace, an unexpected structure that we were not expecting. I didn't venture up because I sent a scout up first and he said the view was no better than from below! We had a bit of a treat here with a troupe of men practicing their martial arts. The girls were amazed how one of the men did a headstand on the bare rock!!

Sunrise Terrace

Turning left at the top we followed the ridge around looking for the Baopu Taoist Temple. I was really looking forward to seeing it but we somehow missed the turn off. Actually we did see a sign and steps going down to a temple but the name on the signboard was not the same as the name in our tour book so we didn't go down. Turns out there is only one temple in that direction so if you want to go there just head down  the first sign boarded path (to the right) that you encounter. And don’t forget to tell me what I missed!

Following the path along eventually you will come across the pagoda. We were not totally impressed by it L . There were a LOT of people who had come up the other way. 

I was followed around by a very large wasp. He simply would not go away, I tried everything. Finally I walked far away from the kids and sat on a wall, with the wasp buzzing around me, and waited for the rest to be done with their sightseeing and photo taking. On the way down there is another teahouse. It looked pretty well stocked but I happened to be looking for a teahouse that served western style cake as it was my hubby’s birthday and they didn't. 

We walked back down to the lake and took the bus (K7, it was packed) into town where we visited the Green Tea Restaurant. We were a party of 6 and had to wait an hour to get a seat. And then it was so packed and the waiters were so rude that we thought it probably was not worth the while. The saving grace was that the food was pretty good, if only they had brought all our orders out together and not first half, and then when we were done with that half, the other half! I think they just forgot our order.

There was a western style bakery a few doors down and I managed to get a few pieces of cake. It’s probably the most expensive cake I've ever bought and it didn't taste that good. In fact I would describe it as tasting like very sweet and soft bread. On the other hand I would describe Chinese bread as tasting like not so sweet, soft cake!!!

Tamarind Liquid - Preparation

Oh my goodness I totally forgot that I had promised to post a recipe for tamarind liquid (see Pad Thai recipe)! So sorry to all of you who are close to a tamarind tree and not to an oak!! I'm wishing I was closer to the tamarind right now because autumn has decided to come early and I'm cold. At least this morning everyone agreed that it is now autumn and no longer summer. Thus, I am now able to put the heating on without feeling bad about it!

But yes, back to the tamarind liquid.

Tamarind Fruit

If you happen to be able to buy tamarind pulp, great! Tamarind pulp is semi-processed tamarind, i.e. it has the shell and the seeds removed but still has the fibers in tact. If you can't get the pulp then you have to process the tamarind yourself.

I'm not exactly sure how many kilo's of tamarind fruit you need to get 1/2 cup (8 fl. oz.) of pulp so you'll have to experiment, but my guess it's quite a bit. Make sure your tamarind is very, very ripe and I would advise that you wear gloves because the acid in the tamarind can ruin your hands. This I know for sure because we used to have two tamarind trees and my dad would hire people to come and process them to be sold. The poor ladies who did the shelling ... , but there were no rubber gloves back then in Sri Lanka.

A tamarind tree

Remove the shell and the seed and then you have pulp! It's a good idea to remove the fibers on the sides too.

For the tamarind liquid you need 1/2 cup of pulp and 1 cup of warm water.

Place the tamarind liquid in a bowl and pour the warm water over it. Let it stand for 20 - 30 minutes, poking and mashing it occasionally with a spoon so that it breaks up.

Next pour the liquid through a sieve pushing the pulp against the sieve with the back of a spoon to get as much of the juice out as possible. Add water so that the liquid is about the consistency of softly whipped cream or a thick pancake batter.

This should make about 1 cup.

Riding Around Kemnadersee

Not something I usually find myself doing... sitting in Starbucks on a Sunday afternoon. However, having to wait for two hours before my kids perform, on the stage just outside the window, was just too much time to waste. The free Wi-Fi, which is hard to get here in Bochum (especially on a Sunday), was too tempting. Plus of course I do get a cup of tea for the price, a warm environment (yes, it is just 20 degrees Celsius in August with no sun) and access to a clean toilet. Definitely worth it. I didn't realize that I'd get live classical music thrown into the package played by the Jungendsinfonieochester, Bochum!

Jungendsinfonieochester Bochum - Dr.-Ruer-Platz, Bochum

Initially I was a bit bummed that there were no free seats outside but now that a table has just freed up I've decided that I'm just going to stay inside so that my tea and my hands don't cool down too quickly. After all the view is not that bad.

The view from my seat

Although today is quite chilly, yesterday was perfect and a perfect example of how you can have fun in your own backyard and it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. My girls were a bit disappointed since we decided the day before yesterday that we wouldn't go to Mallorca for 7 days over the fall vacation. They really want to make the trip because everyone else does. They expressed real interest in seeing what others do while on vacation. After all we are just a boring family. Pottering off to places across the world, never staying for long at one place, and always having something to do. So it was good to have a perfect day to have a vacation at home.

The sky was so blue yesterday and it was just warm enough to go out with a sweater. My husband and I could not help but have to go outside, so we decided on taking our bikes and riding around Kemnader See. I was reminded that a friend was coming over to play so we quickly called her up and asked her to come early with her bike. After blowing up everyone's tires and adjusting all the bike seats we were ready to go.
The weather turned out to be really great for biking and we all got rid of our sweaters within a short period of time.

As we headed down the hill we met the local grass management. Now it's not like we live in a rural area. Bochum has a population of about 370 thousand and we live right next to the Ruhr University. So it might strike some people as an unusual technique:

There was even a shepherd and a sheep dog :) Of course rather modern day with an SUV parked nearby and a radio blaring!! The kids were a bit unnerved but a short blast with our bicycle bells made the sheep move out of the way. Actually I'm rather glad it was sheep, we've had goats before and they are a bit shifty!

One thing that I realized on this trip was that it is really difficult to take pictures while biking! I didn't have any pockets that I could use while biking so my eldest took my camera in her backpack. That made things even more challenging.

The biking path around Kemnader See is just over 10 km long. It's mostly flat so quite easy for the kids to manage. For us the hard part is going back home since we live on a hill. But you could also drive down to the lake and then take your bikes around. Another wonderful thing about the biking path (which is separate from the pedestrian path) is that a lot of it has been newly paved. In actual fact it's been made into a, soon to be officially opened, inline skating trail but since the "inliners" (as they are called here in Germany) go as fast as the bikes it's not a problem to share with them.

I've made a map of the path we took on Google maps


Our first stop was for lunch.

We had fries at an Italian restaurant by the side of the lake. Not the cheapest fries but we got huge portions and huge amounts of ketchup and mayonnaise (yes, in Germany you eat your fries with a mixture of ketchup and mayo and it rarely comes for free, in this case each portion was 0.50 € ). This place also has regular Italian food and a fancy looking pizza oven. As the weather was good we sat overlooking the lake and enjoyed our lunch which we supplemented with cherry tomatoes and grapes.

As we were sitting there having lunch we noticed that there was a bike and inline skate rental place in the same building as the restaurant. We'd lived here for almost 5 years and never stumbled on it! This could have been really useful before I bought my bike last year. We didn't check the prices but I'm tempted to rent some inline skates next time and skate with the girls..

After lunch we continued our trip around the lake. The lake has been artificially created by damming the Ruhr so you have to cross the water at both ends of the lake. On the south western side one crosses alongside the dam itself. It's a bit hidden, and not marked, so you have to be a bit careful. At some point you come to a junction with 4 options. At this point you basically have to take the path that turns very sharply left (basically a U-turn). Once you've taken the turn you will see the bridge and the dam. There is a huge sign asking all bike riders to dismount and push their bikes across the bridge but, as you can imagine, most bikers ignore the signs. This really disturbs the kids. After all it's very clear, even they can read it, any adult must be able to understand what they are expected to do!

Once we were over the dam we turned left but had to stop immediately because one of the kids bikes started rattling. Hubby inspected the bike but couldn't figure out what was wrong. Luckily my older one figured out that it was just a piece of metal hitting the spokes of the tire. That was easy enough to resolve and then we were on our way.  If you go straight, instead of left, you arrive at Haus Kemnader which has a nice little music museum that is free of charge. They also have a fancy restaurant if you are up for something more fancy and relaxing. It does not over look the Ruhr. Just after the damn there is a small kiosk if you need to pick something up. It does not take long to get here from where we had lunch so we didn't stop. I've been there before though and it sells drinks and ice-cream. I don't think it sells any hot food.

I really like this part of the path even though it's squeezed between the highway and the lake. It's higher up than either the highway or the pedestrian path and both sides are densely overgrown with trees. This dampens a lot of the noise and makes you feel like you are in a forest somewhere as opposed to squashed between a highway and a lake.

At the end of the forest path we passed under the highway. Apparently, so I was told later, you can actually take a short cut and cross the river alongside the highway. There are ramps going up on both sides which are rather difficult to see, which is why I missed it even on my second time past! If you don't take the short cut just keep turning left at every junction. One of them actually opens up onto a main road and there are no signs as to where the bike path continues. But here you need to take a left turn which will bring you to yet another pub and most importantly an ice-cream van!! We really enjoyed having ice-cream here last time we were riding around the lake. This time we decided to have ice-cream once we'd finished the loop because we still felt like we had lunch in our tummies.

After crossing the bridge turn left again and follow the path all the way around back to the beginning. Once you get to the end you'll start bumping into people. I nearly had an accident with a zigzagging toddler. I didn't realize he was zigzagging because he had just got onto the path and his father just left him behind and rode off. I assumed he could ride. So since he was riding on the left I passed him on the right. On the right... probably a  big mistake but I was riding fast and he slow, really slow and he was almost on the grass on the left side of the path. My goodness he cut back into me and then after almost knocking me off my bike he cut back to the left and nearly knocked off the on coming rider (who was riding very fast). You know, if you're child can't handle the rules of the biking path it's totally fine to have them ride on the pedestrian trail. At one place, see map, even we rode on the pedestrian part because the bike path is just wide enough for two well experienced riders to pass. Last time when I took it it was disastrous, but I didn't know any better and was just following the signs. It's really dangerous to be  riding on a path with people whizzing past you especially if you don't know which is your left and right. The first time we did it, earlier this year, I spent my time riding behind the girls continually shouting, "bike coming, move to the right!" I felt like a broken record.

We ended our circuit with an ice-cream. It's not the best ice-cream but at least it is "homemade".

Of course once we got home it was time for a nice pot of tea and a cookie.

Right, the kids are ready to sing so it's time to for me to get going. Enjoy!

Risotto and my kids!

With a pot of simmering risotto on the cooker I'm reminded that neither of my children actually like risotto. It's really such a shame, risotto is so expensive, so good when it is fresh and takes so long to make. Plus my husband and I really like mushroom risotto.

I once made asparagus risotto with the hope that it might be the mushrooms that they detest and not the risotto itself but alas I was wrong. I was in one of those cooking moods and I proudly told everyone they would be getting a fancy dinner. Dinner was eaten on the balcony on an evening of rare sunshine and warmth.

At least the kids liked the setting and enjoyed the desert, which was a chocolate mousse made per a recipe I got from my German friend Sylvia in San Francisco. I don't often make the mousse because it requires raw eggs and I'm never too sure about eating raw eggs. German's don't seem to have a problem with it but Asian's do. My husband who is of Chinese origin and I, of mainly Sri Lankan origin, worry about salmonella poisoning when we use raw eggs. Currently we have a solution to this problem. An old colleague of mine keeps hens and when the sun is out and they are laying (sometimes more than one egg a day) I get a message in my in box to come and pick up a box of fresh eggs laid on that very day. These are the only eggs that my oldest will eat without a fight and we all notice the difference to the store bought ones. I guess they are kind of like what we call "gam biththara" in Sri Lanka.

And the time pressure is on ... the risotto is simmering and I have to leave in 15 minutes to go to the store and then pick up my little one from her viola lesson. Can you half cook risotto and then start it over again once it has cooled, or will that kill the consistency of the rice? If mine doesn't hurry up and cook I'm going to find out the answer to this question at dinner time tonight!

Shanghai

Shanghai is certainly a huge city, so unless you stay right down town you’re going to lose a lot of time travelling. The public transport is good, but it can be packed and the stations are very far apart, meaning that you are always left with a long way to walk. In the end we ended up walking a lot more than we normally would have because it didn't make sense to take the subway. If you don’t like crowds you’re going to have a bit of a problem here. All the main attractions are swarming with people!
Since there are so many expats in Shanghai a lot of the people speak (or at least understand) some English.

Getting Around:

We arrived at the Shanghai Pudong Airport which is the one on the South-East side of the city. It’s connected to the city with the Maglev which we decided to take because a) we thought it would save us time and b) we wanted to ride the fast train!

Well the train was fast but the overall journey to the city center was not. Here’s the problem, you get on the train and it goes really fast but it only goes to the Longyang Road station. From there you have to get out of the train, walk a while, and catch the same subway you would have caught if you had decided to take the subway all the way from the airport. Okay, so that doesn't sound so bad but don’t forget all the other people who got off the train want to catch the same subway train that you do. Not to mention all the people who opted to get into the subway at the airport itself. So basically this means that the subway is packed. We had to wait in line to get in. Thank goodness that at least they had people there making everyone stand in line and assuring that there was no pushing. We managed to get into the second subway that arrived even though we were the first people in line. In retrospect I think it would have been less stressful to take the subway from the airport. That way we would have been able to sit and the crowds would not have bothered us. By the time we got to East Nanjing Road the subway had pretty much emptied out and it was not a problem to get off.

Once we were in Shanghai we bought a metro card but it’s not as easy to get the money back in mainland China as it is in Hong Kong so we lost the deposit and the left over money on it. Plus we ended up hardly using the subway. All in all I think we rode it twice. Once on the second day and then at the end to the get to the train station and zoo. If you travel outside of rush hour it might make more sense to buy single ride tickets since the card does not entitle you to any discounts.

If you stay at the hotel we did there is a ticket counter where you can buy train tickets right at the entrance of the building (on the right hand side as you come in). Mind you, you have to pay a commission (beats travelling to the train station, believe me) and if you get the wrong ticket you can't exchange it (although you can exchange it at the train station).

Hotel: 

After Hong Kong I didn’t book any expensive hotels. I wanted to stay down town and I wanted all 4 of us to sleep in one room. This kind of limited our choices. In Shanghai I found that the global chain hotels didn’t have any rooms in which 4 people could sleep. Two rooms would have been too expensive and I didn’t want the kids sleeping alone in an unconnected room. So I booked us into the Seventh Heaven Hotel. It is bam smack in the middle of East Nanjing Road and yes, bam smack in between two subway stations :(. And if you happen to use Expedia: the location of the hotel on their map is incorrect.

One of the disadvantages to this hotel is that it is LOUD. We had a room facing the back so we could not hear any street noise but we could hear everything from the adjoining rooms. Chinese can be very loud and let me tell you that the women can be very high pitched too!

The other not so nice thing was that, although the rooms were non-smoking it didn't stop people from doing just that. Since there were gaps under the room doors the smoke crept in. But cigarette smoke is just one of those things you’ll have to get used to if you are travelling in China. Then of course there was the staff who was not very friendly or helpful.

On the flip side the room was really nice. We had free water, a fridge, soft mattresses and plenty of room. Most of all I enjoyed the decor of the room. It was a very old building and there were moldings on the ceiling and hardwood floors. It reminded me of the old buildings from the colonial period in Sri Lanka. This is the exact room that we stayed in and yes, those are two double beds!

Day 4:

The day we arrived we didn't get to do anything other than have dinner. I initially thought we'd see the Bund and have some dinner around there. Unfortunately getting from the airport to the hotel took much longer than we had expected. Add on to that they changed our initial flight time twice which meant we were arriving around 2 hours later than I had originally planned. We were so tired after our trip into Shanghai that we had dinner in a mall (Hongyi Plaza) that is joined to the East Nanjing Road subway station. Here we experienced the first difference between Hong Kong and mainland China... no toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms and mainly squatting toilets! We were okay with the squatting toilets being used to them from Sri Lanka but we had to stock up on toilet paper and carry it around with us. As for soap, I just took a small bar from the hotel and stuck it in a small zip lock bag. It came in very handy.  We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was reasonably priced, quick, had pretty good food and whose name I cannot remember. We then headed to the hotel and crashed for the night.

East Nanjing Road by night

Day 5: 

We tried out the breakfast at the hotel which was nowhere near stellar but we had 6 breakfast coupons so we figured we should use them up. The restaurant was dingy and badly lit, the tea was terribly weak and the bread was like fluff. The kids enjoyed the strawberry jam on toast and there were boiled eggs to go with it. If you are a meat eater things probably are a bit better and if you enjoy eating oily, hot food for breakfast you would be fine too. Oh yes! The other thing we enjoyed was the rice soup which my in-laws frequently make us for breakfast so we were used to it.

After eating we headed out to the East Nanjing Road subway station and caught the #2 to the Yuyuan Gardens. We were rather unlucky because it was pouring with rain! We used this as an excuse to duck into the shops in the Yuyuan Bazaar. We watched them making European style hard boiled sweets in one shop. It seemed to be the rage in China. We really should have bit the bullet and bought some with the panda face in them.

Thanks to the weather we wanted to have tea at the famous Huxinting Teahouse but after sitting down and perusing the menu we decided this was just too much to pay for a cup of tea. We seriously wondered if they had a tourist menu because they seemed to have big pots of tea for locals that were not on the menu. I don't have a photo of this place because of the rain but you can follow the link above and see some on trip advisor. Looking at their pictures I'm realizing that we must have been really lucky that it was raining because there were way fewer people!

We were not too impressed with the gardens. I think we got off on a bad foot because the first area we visited looked just like the Chinese tea garden in the botanical gardens of the Ruhr University which is about 10 minutes walk from our house in Germany! But it could have also been the rain or that we were expecting more green and less concrete and stone.








We exited through the southern entrance and went in search of the Temple of the Town God. That was also a bit difficult to find. But once we hit the road at the southern side of the "block" we turned left and it was right there. I think the trick is you have to enter the temple from the main road and although there is an exit back into the bazaar you can't get in through there. The temple is much like the Man Mo Temple just bigger. Lots of people, lots of incense, the kids were totally saturated with this type of temple.

We wanted to eat some vegetarian food here but the teahouse seemed deserted so we opted to go back outside to find something. We walked west on the main road, turned right on the next main street and on the junction of this road and a road that headed back into the bazaar we found a vegetarian restaurant called Songyuelou which turns out to be one of Shanghai's oldest vegetarian restaurants. The downstairs serves quick, hot food like noodle soup and the upstairs serves regular vegetarian food. We opted for upstairs because they had an English menu. It was fine upstairs except that the other guests ignored the no smoking signs :(

After lunch we wondered past the Chenxiangge Nunnery. We decided not to go in and walked over to the Shanghai Museum. The walk was rather long but on the street that we walked down every other store sold either pianos or violins. This kept our kids occupied since the older one plays the piano and the younger one the viola. It was quite amazing to see every brand under the sun all on one street, all in spotlessly clean, modern showrooms.

Eventually we got to the museum only to find a long line outside. But we needn't have worried, lines in China tend to move very fast and this one was just a security line so it was super fast. We were inside in a jiffy, in the foyer of the museum:

We were too tired to do the whole museum so we just focused on a couple of galleries that interested us. The museum was quite packed and it closed rather early so even if we had been fit enough to go through the whole museum I doubt we would have had time. This piece was my favourite. I love how the cats are trying to attack the buffalo!

We exited through the northern entrance and walked through People's Square back down Nanjing Road. If I remember correctly we had Mac Donald's for dinner!

Day 6:

We finally walked down East Nanjing Road to the Bund! It was amazing how many people there were on the road and how few there were in the shops, with the one exception being the Apple store!

My husband remembers walking down the street before it was a pedestrian zone and we got a bit of a feeling how it must have been when the pedestrian zone ended. It was quite difficult to walk along the pavement with the kids. We finally reached the Bund and crossed over to stand on the Bund itself, which was again packed with people.

As you can see although it wasn't raining there were quite a few clouds, so we couldn't see the tops of the two tallest buildings in Pudong. But the most interesting part was on the side we were on where the old buildings still survive. Hardly anyone seemed to turn around and look at these historical buildings.

From a European point of view none of the buildings are very old. None of them are much older than 110 years, but in China this is rather old. Chinese have a love for new things and do not find anything old worth keeping. Hence, there are hardly any old buildings, they are all ripped down (or left to decay) and new ones are built in their place. You can see this everywhere in China. Of course they do preserve the very old and very large places e.g. the forbidden city, the great wall.
We popped into one of the buildings that now houses a small, but fancy, shopping mall. The lobby was so nice and they had good British tea, Twinnings to be exact. But at 10 Euro a cup we were not going to stop for a cuppa.

I particularly liked the old moldings and these wonderful lampshades. I contemplated buying them for our new house but realized that they were probably as tall as our whole building. Not to mention that they would probably cost more than our whole house does!!

We then pottered along and had lunch at a place called "Shanghai Laolao". They had plenty of vegetarian options and the food was cheap and good and the atmosphere was also nice. We then headed back home down E Nanjing Rd my husband making a stop at the Apple store, to verify rumors that i-phones were cheaper in China (cheaper but not by much), and me at Gap which was directly opposite. We didn't plan on doing any shopping but I really wanted to check out the Gap store since we don't have Gap in Germany. My husband usually buys my pants from Gap when he's on conferences in the USA!! Unfortunately they don't sell the same style of jeans in China as they do in the USA. But I bought my kids their first pairs of jeans for just 10 Euro. I always love Gap sales :)

After a short break at our hotel we met up with an old friend from San Francisco and my cousin who works somewhere in China. Our travels took us down West Nanjing Rd. towards People's Park where, according to my friend, parents show up on a Sunday with their children's resumes with the hope of finding a suitable spouse for them. Along the way we stumbled on this:

which we decided to call "big sculpture out of metal and concrete" because none of us could read the Chinese characters describing what it was. We took a break from the long walk at the Wooden Box Cafe where they play jazz in the evenings and serve tea and milkshakes (among other things). The shakes were gooooood and welcome on the hot afternoon. After doing a bit of window shopping we ate at Vegetarian Lifestyle, which was a bit upscale with excellent vegetarian food. Even our meat eating companions liked it!
After dinner we took a cab back to the hotel but not before we took in the Bund by night. A lovely spectacle if you like skylines. I actually preferred this one to the one in Hong Kong.

Day 7:

After "enjoying" the breakfast buffet at our hotel we headed off to the Shanghai Zoo. I'd promised my youngest that by hook or by crook she would see a real live panda in China, since there aren't any in Germany. She was totally hooked on them after watching the live cam at the San Diego Zoo. Getting there was easy enough because the subway (line 10) stops right at the zoo, but of course we had other issues. We had bought train tickets to Hangzhou that left in the afternoon from the Shanghai Hongqiao train station. This station is two stops away from the zoo which was very convenient. The problem was our luggage! So instead of going straight to the zoo we first went to the train station to find the left luggage counter so that we could store our packs. The train station is HUGE! We had a time finding the counter, it is not sign-boarded, at least not in English, and it turned out to be a bit larger than a walk-in cupboard with a couple of young ladies looking after it. I wish I could find a plan of the place so I could show you where it is. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, it was not cheap!

Well once we had taken care of our bags we headed back to the zoo, which was by this time packed with the ticket counter line making Disney Land lines look short! But, again, we were pleasantly surprised how fast the lines moved. Make sure you know how tall your kids are before you get in line. In fact make sure you measure your kids before you leave home so that you know if they are under 120 cm, 130 cm or 140 cm, for these are the typical cut offs in China when buying tickets.

We'd heard a lot about how bad the zoo was, and how disturbing it was, but all I can say is that if you want disturbing you should have visited the Dehiwala Zoo in Sri Lanka in the 1980's. Then you would know what disturbing is! The zoo was almost spotlessly clean. I'm not sure you could keep it much cleaner with so many people visiting which ever country you were in (okay maybe it's possible in Japan).
We headed straight for the panda's because the zoo was much larger than we had thought it was and we had a train to catch at around 3 pm. The paths were shady and the lakes/ ponds were pleasing, the only thing that annoyed me was the cicada's. Oh my, they were so loud it was almost deafening! And it was non-stop. I was reminded of the metal cicada's they sell in China Town in SF, if you know which ones I mean just imagine 1,000 of them singing at the same time. Within an hour I had a headache and after spending some time staring at the panda's I just wanted to get out of there!

Turns out that my little panda fan changed her mind about her second favourite animal (her first is the penguin) it is now the red panda, also known as the lesser panda, and I could not agree with her more.

We checked out a few more animals, whose enclosures were on par with European ones, saw no more people knocking at the glass than we do in Germany (percentage wise) and left to catch our train. All in all it was a good experience but if ever I find myself there again I'll invest in a pair of noise reduction headphones!!

Back at the train station we found our waiting area, took a seat on the ground, and waited. Given that there were so many seats you might think that you would find one but that was not the case. The whole waiting area was packed. Good thing the floor was spotless.

We got our first, train boarding experience here. Quite different from anywhere else in the world that I've been. Probably because of the huge amount of people boarding the trains. Everyone waits in the waiting area until their train starts boarding. Then you have to proceed through the gate and down the stairs (the waiting area is always on the floor above the platforms) to get to your train. Don't be surprised when your train is boarded 30 minutes before departure. The trains are so long that you need this time to get downstairs, walk the length of the train and find your seat.
The train was very comfortable. We chose a fast train which got us to Hangzhou East Railway Station in a little under one hour. Fantastic ride with great views of urban and rural China. If you are staying in down town Hangzhou (which I highly recommend) then you should catch a train to the Hangzhou Main Station. It takes around 5 - 10 minutes longer with the trains running every hour.

We were picked up here by my father-in-law and went back to his place for dinner and a good nights sleep.