Valerie: For my birthday we visited the Jinmao Tower -- the tallest building in China. The observation floor is on the 88th floor -- probably because the Chinese believe the number 8 is lucky. The views were pretty great and we were even able to send postcards from the post office at the top. Pretty cool.
Adam: For Valerie's birthday, the Chinese people got confused, and gave me a gift instead: a really terrible chest cold. Thanks guys (or as they say here, xie xie!) It wasn't so bad on the twelfth, so we saw a decent amount of Shanghai before I retired to our so-called "king size room." Seriously, it was two double beds pushed together. I know we're getting the room for free, but come on people!
Valerie: For dinner we decided to splurge. We ate at one of Shanghai's swankiest restaurants -- New Heights. The restaurant is at the top of No. 3 on the Bund and offers spectacular views of the Bund as well as of Pudong. In exchange for having an early dinner, we had the best table in the house -- outside terrace with unobstructed views.
(The Bund, from New Heights)
Valerie: Although Adam had been "ragging" on the Intercontinental all week - the hotel we were staying at for free because of his points - they nonetheless remembered my birthday and surprised us that night with a free cake and nice card.
(Second birthday cake of the day. Go me!)
Adam: This was nice, and it partially made up for the fact that the housekeeping staff repeatedly ignored the "do-not-disturb" sign at 8:30 in the morning and tried to make up our room while I was prancing about in my boxers. In any case, after Valerie's birthday dinner (and cake), my cold came on full strength, so the next day (Thursday, September 13), I was in bed. All day. Luckily, I managed to keep Valerie from taking too many pictures, as she is instinctively inclined to do.
Valerie: No worries, the hotel had a gym.
Fast Forward to September 14th
Valerie: After a day of bed rest, and because we couldn't book the hotel for another night, we packed up and headed to Hangzhou -- a town famous for its lake. Woo-hoo, a lake!
Adam: The lake - XiHu, or "West Lake," is a really famous tourist destination in China, despite the fact that it is an artificial lake - well, sort of - it was a swamp, which was dredged around 800 C.E. (A.D.) by an emperor who wanted a vacation spot. It retains some of that character today - despite having a population of about 6 million, Hangzhou feels like a really small town. We really enjoyed our time walking around on the wide sidewalks (whose value should never be underestimated) and eating some delicious Singaporean food.
Valerie: The best meal I've had in China so far, at Prima Taste -- a Singaporean restaurant -- and it wasn't even Chinese food. We liked it so much we went back for lunch on Saturday.
September 15th
Valerie: We had envisioned waking up early to watch the sunrise on the lake. We even set the alarm clock for 5:30am. Needless to say, we didn't wake up till 7am. We ate breakfast and headed for a leisurely stroll around the lake. We walked for about 3 1/2 hours and didn't even make it half way around the lake. It was actually smart that we ended up sleeping in because it was far too foggy to get a decent view of the sun.
(Four women on a bench by the lake)
Adam: However, getting up at 7 did allow us to avoid the hordes of tourists that had descended upon the lake by 10. So we finished walking around, ate, and headed off to the train station. Those Chinese - practical jokers they are - sold us (for the same price as a regular ticket) a standing-room ticket - leaving us on foot for the 1 1/4 hour trip back to Shanghai. They sure got us good this time!
Next: Yangshuo, and then the great smelly port (or Hong Kong, which translates to "fragrant harbor").
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2 comments:
Happy Birthday Valerie! My mom says she likes your blog. She is really enjoying the photos from your trip to China : )
nice read. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did anyone know that some chinese hacker had busted twitter yesterday again.
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