Day 15: January 18, 2013 Rolling on the River!

     Today was probably the best day I have had here yet! First of all, we did not have our second class of the day because we have a field trip planned on Sunday. Then, we got out an hour early from our first class so we were done by 10:45! We definitely had to take advantage of the beautiful day and decided to go check out the infamous Yuyuan Gardens.  We got off at the subway stop and wandered for a little while until we finally found the entrance and paid only about $2 for an amazing experience. Inside of the gardens was absolutely gorgeous and had so much to see. We wandered around for quite some time and got some of our best pictures yet (Catriona and I decided to take off our coats since we looked like we are wearing the same outfit in every picture so far).

 

The roomies!

   
   When we had seen all there was to see, we went back out of the gardens to the giant area of surrounding shops and found this giant dining court to eat in. Bryan, Joe, Catriona, and I all got different things and split them, which all turned out to be pretty delicious. Between the four of us we had spring rolls, dumplings, baozi (stuffed buns), and satay chicken, which was more than enough.  We were feeling too cheap to pay for pricey drinks since our meals were pretty expensive, so we hit up McDonald’s. I ended up getting a McFlurry since my throat was hurting, but it was definitely not the same as at home. The texture was right but the ice cream was more creamy/milk and the best way to describe it was that it tasted like the inside of an oreo. Not a bad thing, but just not quite right.

    

    After lunch we did some walking around the shops to try and find Joe some jade and started talking to this guy with really good English who ended up showing us all around the area. He even took us up in this awesome building for an amazing view of the city from the top floor. We were a little concerned we were getting “teahoused” as we like to call it after our encounter with Mr. P, but I think he was actually just a nice guy trying to show us a good time. After we took in the great view for a while we went back to shopping and I ended up buying another scarf, some postcards to send home, and some chopsticks for gifts. Randomly a guy had his van stopped on the side of the road with his doors open and told me to “take a seat,” which we found pretty humorous. The funny part is that it is so safe here and I’m sure he was just offering a ride, but to us it just seems so weird.

Roof top view

  
     We passed up the ride and decided that we had had enough walking around.  Bryan and I decided that since we were so close to the river that we should go on a cruise. Getting our tickets was relatively easy and it ended up being one of my favorite things I had done so far. We were one of the first people on the boat so we could have had a nice seat inside on the main floor but decided the view outside was much nicer and to stick it out through the cold. On the way up we passed a VIP room for $5 where you get a free drink and snack and then have a whole room to yourself with a big couch and a perfect view. For whatever reason we passed it up, with much regret later, but still had a great ride. They drove us down past the skyline and back down the Bund and it was seriously breathtaking. It is one thing to see that view from the other side of the river, but being right in front of it was just crazy. After a chilly 50 minutes we were back to where we started with a lot of wind burn but absolutely no regrets. 

Pudong skyline

Beautiful view

    It was a little bit of a walk to the subway but found a really cool music store to stop in on the way. Bryan had seen these Chinese instruments around the gardens earlier and was so close to buying one and then found them again in this store. He couldn’t commit just yet but he seems pretty convinced that he is either going to buy one of those or a ukulele before he leaves. When we finally made it back we grabbed some street food for dinner, but felt really guilty because we went to a different guy to test him out. It was basically the same but this place had the option to get meat which we decided wasn’t really worth it after the fact, so we decided from now on we will stick to our main man. We took it easy for the rest of the night as everyone else either went to the Aoki concert or back to Perry’s, both of which turned out to be pretty disastrous. Aoki didn’t even come out until 2 am when the concert started at 9 and was just absolutely packed, so I was glad I didn’t spend the money and got a night to relax.