We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Shanghai. Upon arrival on Thursday night at the airport, it immediately became apparent while waiting in the taxi line that this was the coldest weather Shane had ever experienced in his short little life.
...we headed to the underground tunnel to go to the skyscraper business district of Pudong. The ride over involved a small passenger tram going through a psychedelic light show under the river.
We checkout out the skyscrapers at ground level...
...before heading up one of the world's fastest elevators 88 floors up to the top of the Jinmao tower.
(the Jinmao Tower)
(the kids in the elevator...ears popping?)
(the view down the middle of the building)
Then we had a lunch of multi-colored, multi-flavored soup dumplings. Yum!
We spent the afternoon hanging out on the Bund, Shanghai's famous historic riverfront promenade lined with beautiful old buildings and great views of Pudong on the other side of the river.
Shane passed out early that night, so Eliana and Izaak went out into the Shanghai night to find dinner to bring back to the hotel room. The hotel was located near Nanjing Road, quite lively at night.
The next day was our last one, so we decided to cover more ground by riding the hop-on, hop-off bus around town to get to the spots we wanted to visit.
First stop was the Yu Garden and surrounding area, which was lined with traditional buildings and narrow pedestrian walkways.
(kites!)
Right outside the garden itself was a fountain-filled pond, traversable via wooden bridge.
(koi feeding frenzy)
The garden itself seemed to never end, with amazing landscaping, statues, and buildings.
In the middle of a garden was a teahouse, where we were giving a demonstration and tasting, followed by a shakedown.
(hot water makes the frog change color!)
Then a little lunch outside the garden...
...followed by some well-earned dessert.
We took the bus over this huge bridge whose spiraling onramp took us about 1080-degrees to get up onto the bridge.
We had a lage night flight out, which allowed us a few more hours on Shanghai's streets.
To get to the airport, we took the Maglev, the high-speed train that floats on magnets. It took us over an hour to get in via cab but only 8 minutes to get out.
