Last day of the guided tour.
We left the hotel at 8:30 and went directly to the bund (waterfront) in front of the customs house. I took some pictures, but the sun was coming from behind the Oriental Pearl Tower, so I am not sure they will come out very good. The lighting for the customs house was good.
From the bund we went to a silk factory where even the tour guide was pushing us to buy silk comforters, pillows and sheets. I would not recommend the tour company I used for a client. We spent at least an hour at the government operated silk factory. It was interesting seeing the stages of the silkworm and live silk worms, but I’m not into shopping.
After the silk factory we went to lunch at a hotel and had the same Chinese food we’ve had for 2 weeks. It was good, but it has been a bit too repetitious.
From lunch we went to the Shanghai museum. We spent 90 minutes at the museum and luckily when we visited the museum the queue (line) to enter was very short. When we came out there was a tremendous queue to enter.
After the museum they took us to Nanjing Road (East) where the fancy shops are. We walked a bit, but I didn’t see anything too appealing (other than the McDonald’s and Pizza Hut). The group was meeting at 15:45 to continue to a government operated Cashmere factory. After the factory they were going to bring the people who paid for the optional tour to see the acrobatic show to it and the others (me) back to the hotel. Instead of going to the Cashmere factory I told the tour guide I was going to skip it and visit a temple that closed at 17:00. Two others from New Zealand joined me.
We took the metro to Jing’an Temple and only got to visit for half an hour before it closed, but it was brilliant. I had actually seen the temple from the bus on the highway in the morning (the tour guide didn’t mention it). I was very glad I escaped to visit it.
From Jing’an temple we took the metro back to the Oriental Pearl Tower. I got some pictures of the Oriental Pearl Tower and Jing Mao Building in daylight. We had dinner at McDonald’s (quick and cheap – 37 RMB for a large Big Mac meal). We took some more pictures at sunset (not a spectacular sunset) and walked to the bund. We took a lot more pictures along the river. The weather was great and so was the scenery.
Below is a picture of the Oriental Pearl Tower just around sunset
Below are pictures (from my real camera) of the Oriental Pearl Tower
We took the metro back to the hotel at the end of the day. Tomorrow I fly back to the US (via Canada). I’d definitely come back to China. Everything is so modern and clean. The taxis are cheap.