Living Life to its Fullest: 10/ 16/10 – Day 21 – Shanghai, China: Oldtown and the 2010 World Expo

After a big day yesterday, we slept in a bit and headed off the ship about 10:00. We had 3 things on our agenda (only two of which we were able to get to): Old Town, the World Expo, and the Maglev train. Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we were able to take a ride on the Maglev train, which travels using magnets (similar to Disney’s monorails). However, this train travels at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. We’ll have to save that for next visit, though.

We took a taxi to Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar. The Bazaar part is where our driver dropped us off, and we had trouble finding the gardens due to the vastness of the market. However, we were able to finish buying our China gifts and souvenirs as we meandered following signs to the gardens. The true beauty of this area could easily be missed if one failed to look up. While on the street level all that could be seen was modern store fronts and market booths, on the next levels to be seen was the marvelous traditional wooden architecture of the curved roofs and structures linked together without the use of nails or screws, some of which date back to the late 1500s. We finally made our way to Yuyuan Gardens, only to find ourselves quite low on cash due to all the shopping we had done. We did pool together enough for the 30 Yuan each entrance fee and decided the 50 remaining Yuan would be enough for a taxi ride back to the ship. The gardens were beautiful! I don’t have any words to accurately explain. Hopefully, you can gather a small glimpse by the attached photos.

After Old Town, we took a taxi back to the ship, grabbed some lunch, changed some money, and headed back out. This time, it was to go way down south of town to the 2010 World Expo. This is a big deal for Shanghai. It’s not quite like hosting the Olympics, but bears its similarities as far as the city’s need to build facilities to accommodate and update public transportation. Not that it’s something we hear about in the States much, but it is the world’s 3^rd largest event next to the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. Countries from around the world sponsor pavilions (similar to Epcot, but on a much larger scale) for visitors to see and experience. Also, there is a business area, which houses new technology from many different companies. The Expo began May 1^st and goes through October 31^st. During these dates, the Expo is predicted to draw 70 million people. Well, today we were three of the over 1 million visitors to the Expo. Let’s just say there were people, people, and more people. We can say we went to the World Expo, but can’t say that we saw any of the exhibits, except from the outside of the buildings. We weren’t willing to wait in line for hours to see what different countries had on display. This place was huge (about 3 square miles) and the sightseeing shuttle bus wasn’t running due to “too many people.” It was crazy. We spent a few hours walking around, experiencing the Expo, and we were only able to see a very small fraction of what was there. We were glad we went, however it was a much different experience than we were expecting. After a few hours, we exited in search of a taxi to take us to the maglev train. After over an hour of walking and trying to find and hail an available taxi, we were finally successful. By this time, we decided it was best just to head back to the ship and not try to squish in a ride on the maglev train. We were tired and wanted to get back without being in danger of missing the boat. We got back, grabbed some dinner and then watched as the ship set sail from our stateroom balcony.

Overall, it was a wonderful two days in the metropolis of Shanghai. Now it’s time to rest. We have two sea days before Hong Kong.