Day 20: Shanghai - Museum and more - Oct 9, 2009

Adelene now has the cold which had gone around a few of us on the tour.

Took a taxi to go to the French Concession area, but obviously the taxi driver didn't know it, and even after some phonecalls we ended up at what looked like the French embassy. We knew we weren't in the right place, but he pointed to the French flag, so we paid and got out!

Nearby was the Shanghai Museum that we'd planned to visit later, so we went there first instead. This is quite an iconic building set amongst gardens, and everything inside was translated into English. I also hired a headset (20 yuan for locals, 40 yuan for tourists - yes, Shanghai has started to capitilise on us foreigners!) There were four floors with the most ancient and equisite Chinese treasures - beautiful bronzes, ceramics dating back 8,000 years (unbelievable!), intricate pieces of jade, and of course some of the oldest money in the world (yes, China lays claim to having invented paper money, back in the Song Dynasty). The museum is really a place to go back to a couple of times to really do properly.

While looking on the map for the French Concession, we came across a little hidden gem, the Memorial House of the First National Congress of the CPC. Bargain, we thought - finally we're going to get some history from the Chinese perspective! This place was as secure as a parliament house - the police station was across the road, the police had blocked the street so you could really only walk up to it, there was all the usual security checks (bags xrayed, made to drink from our water bottles etc) and don't even think about taking photos inside. The place was pretty small - the original meeting room from 1921, a tiny kitchen and a two room museum with documents, ledgers, photos and badges from the war years. Unfortunately the information was only in Chinese. It was however the only place we've seen on the trip covering modern Chinese history, but we could only look. Mind you, we were watched and followed the entire time, so I didn't ponder too long on any one piece.

Around the corner from there we sort of stumbled into the French Concession, a smallish area of colonial style buildings, now all converted into western restaurants and bakeries, serving westerners food at western prices. We took a couple of photos and left!

6.00pm - Met three of the Canadians who are still in Shanghai for dinner. Caught a taxi across to the east side of the river to the base of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. It looks so spectacular all lit up at night, and so futuristic. The walk along the riverbank looking across the river to the famous Bund was absolutely a sight to see, with the lights reflecting off the water. All the restaurants at the riverbank were western themed, so with a bit of hunting in a back street found a sign to the Tang Dynasty Chinese Restaurant. But this was no ordinary Chinese restaurant. It was a 5 star oppulent restaurant, like one you would find in a five star hotel, with chandeliers, deluxe furnishing and about four or five waiters tending to us. The menu was absolutely enormous, in a great big bound book. I chose mixed seafood served in a whole pumpkin, and it was jam packed with all different kinds of seafood. We shared a number of other dishes, had tea, juice and fresh fruit for dessert. We were expecting it to be super expensive, but it only came to 84 yuan (A$17) each. Anywhere else in the world we would have paid much, much more.