A few days ago we unexpectedly received an email from our good friend, Aihua, from Beijing, China.
Aihua (pronounced “Iowa”) was our tour guide who was with us every step of the way as we enjoyed our amazing “Yangtze River” Cruise & Land Tour in his Beautiful Country.
As we hadn’t heard from Aihua for a while it was a pleasant surprise… and of course, what was also pleasant was all the amazing memories it brought up for us when we thought back to the great time we had in that historic region a couple of years ago.
With that said, we wanted to share a little about that journey with you this week. We hope you find it as fascinating as the trip itself actually was.
Today we’ll start off by telling you about the highlights of our time in Shanghai…
…tomorrow we’ll move to the Yangtze River Cruise portion of the trip, then Xi’an where the famous Terra Cotta Warriors are, then to spectacular Beijing and we’ll finish off the week with some of our video footage to help you get a better feel for this land.
Shanghai…
…what a great way it was to start our journey in China!
The first few days in this beautiful city were on our own and then the rest of the trip was with our River Cruise tour group… a River Cruise & Land Tour is definitely a good idea in China as English is not readily spoken and being such a vast land you can cover more cities this way… with ease!
That said, what we remember most about the great places to visit in Shanghai, China was the architecture and it’s contrast of both the new and the old buildings.
Especially Old Shanghai and it’s Yuyuan Garden… no visit is complete without a visit to this captivatingly historical landmark.
Plus, a look across both sides of the Huangpu river and you’ll see the historic Bund district on one side and on the other the growing, super modern, Pudong skyline.
As you can imagine, we were eager to explore Shanghai, so at 7am our 1st morning we headed out thinking the streets would be bare, but nothing could have been further from the truth…
…we found locals already practicing Tai Chi in the gardens and the Nanjing Pedestrian Shopping & Entertainment District was bustling with shoppers.
We remember also having breakfast at the “Grand Hyatt” Hotel while in the Pudong region one morning as we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sit on the 54th floor and look over the city! No typo… yes, the “54th” floor 🙂
Other highlights that stick out?
When we visited a carpet factory as the history, the perfection and time that goes into making these rugs is incredible…
…visiting the Shanghai Museum was also great plus, we highly recommend getting a (or many) wonderful spa treatments/massages that cost around $20/hour on average (we did 3 in Shanghai and loved it :-)) and a trip to a local grocery store/market for a bit of culture shock.
What was the # 1 highlight of our time in Shanghai though you ask?
Without question the Chinese Acrobats show we saw our last evening there!
Amazing… we’ve seen 18 Cirque Du Soleil shows over the years and it’s no wonder many of their artists come from China as so much of these arts started over there and they’re true perfectionists of the art of acrobatics… again, amazing!!
By the way, if you want to see all our pics of Shanghai & of our River Cruise go to our Shanghai & Yangtze River Cruise photos & videos.
As mentioned, tomorrow we’ll be covering the mystic Yangtze River and the spectacular 5 day River Cruise we enjoyed on it.. stay tuned!
We appreciate You!
Nancy & Shawn
Your Trusted Cruise Experts!