Day 2 of Chinese Fun

8/30
Day 2 in Shanghai, began at about 5 AM for me and my roommate. We went down to the restaurant where we could claim our free breakfast from the hotel; it was the restaurant with the red lanterns across the Motel 168. Thank God that there were no massage girls this time. This was going to be our first breakfast in China, a true Chinese breakfast. As it turned out, it was not that great, it consisted of pickled egg, seaweed, a wheat bun, watery rice, and milky tea. The seaweed was the worst one, and the breakfast did not fill us up at all. We then all met up at 9:30 to head to the Peoples Park, a huge open area and then to the Shanghai Exhibition Center to learn about Shanghai’s past, present, and future.
We then headed off to the Silk factory, where we saw and held silk worms. We got a glimpse of how they gather silk from the worms, they actually bake the worms inside the silk cocoons that they make to kill them off, but they leave 10 percent for reproduction. Silk is soooooo expensive, but nice, especially the boxers!! Too awesome.
Then shopping at Yunan Gardens…a palace of the old provincial governor…way too many people in one place, but a great place to shop for knockoffs…haha. The gardens were pretty cool, a nice relaxing place in the middle of a busy city, with a huge koi pond and heavily wooded central area. Was able to bargain a street vendor over a folex from 105 yuan to 30 yuan, it’s preview of the many bargaining that will take place.
In the evening time, we took a Yangtze River cruise near the Pudong area of Shanghai. It was great to see all the tall buildings of Shanghai lighted up and so up close from the water.

--Ji