Ti m had a business breakfast this morning so I set the clock for 7 am. Ends up the time on the clock was set an hour early so it was really 6 and he was an hour early for his meeting - whoops! He came back to the room and slept in the chair until the clock went off again. I needed that extra hour of sleep after last night! I got back up at 8 (the real 8!), got dressed, and went to a fabulous breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby. Out group met at 9:30 to begin our tour of Shanghai, while Tim went to the DuPont offices in Pudong to meet with Shirley for the morning. We went through Pu-She, through the tunnel to Pudong and straight to the Pearl Tower. R Crusoe Tours had arranged a private lecture with Patrick Kranik who is a Marketing/Communications consultant in Shanghai but also a Chinese history expert. He spoke with us for about an hour and a half n the history of Shanghai. We got in the VIP line, no waiting, and went straight to the elevator to speed us to the top. We went to the highest large sphere on the tower and had the dining room to ourselves. The views were magnificient. We saw the current 4th tallest building in the world and next door they are building the tallest in the world (for now). Everything in Pudong (east) has been built in the last 15 years. The construction is unbelievable. Patrick described the last 2 centuries in Shanghai - it was not much of anything before that. He gave a cultural, political, societal, and architectural perspective of Shanghai. He is very passionate about Shanghai. We then walked to the people mover ride under teh Huangpu River. It had lights and a lot of fancy things. We all fit in one capsule that moved n a track under the Pu. We arrived at The Bund - the happening place in Shanghai. We walked up the waterfront and marveled at the old buildings. At 18 The Bund is Bar Rouge - upstairs - the nightclub where Tim partied previously and had the Nebecanesure bottle of champagne. We had lunch at 4 The Bund at M on the Bund on the rooftop terrace. Lunch was leisurely and fabulous. I had salmon carpaccio and rack of lamb - deliciious. Our lunch lasted 2 1/2 hours. We then got on the bus and went to Yu Gardens. David gave us a great narrative of the meaning of the gardens. He explained that northern Chinese people are simple while southern Chinese people are complex - hence the gardens all have meaning here. After the garden tour, Tim and I walked around the many shops but we didn't buy anything. We took a taxi back to the hotel. Tim napped while I updated my blog.
I got way behind since we were on thes hip for 3 days and the wireless wouldn't work. After dressing, we met Ed Riley from Ingersoll Rand (now working in Shanghai) in the lobby lounge for a drink and catcu-up talk. He seems to be very happy and was glad that we were able to visit in Shanghai together. He is enjoying Shanghai and will probably stay here a while lonter. Ed joined us for the evening activities since I had asked David to get Ed a ticket to the acrobatic show. We then met up with our group and went by bus to the acrobatic show that was unbelievable. The 1 hour 45 minute performance was spectacular. Contortionists, trampolines, spring boards, and many other things. The highlights for me were the man who spun large Chinese vases on his fingers and threw them in the air and caught them on the back of his neck - never dropping them - and they were large - and the motorcyclists in a sphere that was about 12 feet in diameter. One by one they added a motorcyclist until there were 8 motorcycles speeding around inside the sphere. It was amazing. The show ended with confetti that had fortunes on them - like the inside of Chinese fortune cookies - which don't even exist in China!
After the show, we loaded on our bus and David took us for a nighttime tour of the lights on the Bund. We was most of this last night but it was fun seeing it all again. After the city tour we got back to the Four Seasons Hotel at 9:5 pm. We immediately went to the Steak House Restaurant for salad, steak, and wine. I've been craving a steak so it was good to have a Western-style dinner. The restaurant staff was so nice to accommodate us even though we arrived 5 minutes before closing. We enjoyed our steak dinner, and about 11 pm bade our farewells to Ed Riley and headed up to bed. This was a long day for us and we were really tired - especially after partying so late last night - so we went to bed - but it was again almost midnight.
Larry
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