Sinorama China Tour Day 3 Shanghai

Sinorama China Tour--Scenic Landscapes, Rural Villages 10 Days+5-night Yangtze River Cruise, November 10 to November 24, 2015 

Day 3 (November 12, 2015)-- Shanghai, China

We have a whole day here in Shanghai today. One thing I liked about this tour was that it did not require us to get up extremely early in the morning. Usually we would have breakfast at around 7AM, then meet with the guide for tours at around 8:30. That gave us enough sleep for the night and had time to enjoy our breakfast leisurely before the busy day.

Breakfast was something to look forward to because of the variety of food available. Most hotels provide plenty of western and Chinese breakfast items for guests to choose from. Lunch and dinner on the land portion of this tour were monotonously, with some kind of sweet and sour at every meal, and lots of vegetables. I think they tried to provide food that is cost effective and appeals to the western taste buds but did a poor job doing it. What turned out on the lazy susan would generally be the Chinese version of the Americanized Chinese food. If there was a soup, it could very well be the imitation borsch that was watered-down and flavorless. There were a few times that they had french fries as a dish at meals. Yes, a lot of fried things.

All-you-can-eat breakfast at Wyndham.

Lots to choose from

View from our hotel room to the right.

Yangpu Bridge (Inner-Ring Elevated Road) over the Huangpu River on the left.

After breakfast we had time to go out on a stroll nearby. We walked a couple of blocks to Pingliang Road, then made our way back through Meizhou Road. Feeling the rhythm of the city and seeing how locals go on their daily lives is something that intrigue us.

Look! There is even an 85 Degrees Bakery!

Then we came upon this wet market, I believe this was on Shenyang Road.

We also went inside this indoor market on the right. We managed to get some hot soy milk and Chinese doughnuts at the stand near the corner of this street after standing in line for 10 minutes. We were quite full from breakfast but we just had to try some. They were delicious!

Great soy milk and fried dough shop. The line soon got quite long as we were still deciding if we should get some. The lady brought her own pot to bring some hot soy milk home.

Our hotel standing tall in the neighborhood.

Shanghai Museum

Last night, we came to the hotel with bus #2 and this morning we finally met our fellow travel companions from bus #1. We were also asked to switch from table #2 to table #4 because there seemed to be some problems with the original grouping. 

First excursion of the day was to the Shanghai Museum.We were there early so the line was not terribly bad. Security was very tight, almost like going through security check at the airport. The exterior of the building is quite impressive and admission is free, we were told.

Entrance to the museum

beautiful sculptures

ceiling

There are four levels with different exhibition in each room. Well organized and easy to explore. 

I only took one picture of the displays there though.

I was actually too tired to go through the rooms and spent most my time sitting on benches waiting for MOR to explore on his own. 

Silk Embroidery-Mongolian BBQ-Cashmere Factory

It was raining when we came out of the Shanghai Museum. Our next stop would be a shopping stop at a complex that houses an embroidery factory, a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, and a cashmere shop.

Exterior of the complex

First stop, the embroidery factory/shop.

They had some amazingly beautiful silk embroidery for sale but they were all too expensive for us.

Other than a couple of people buying small versions of the silk embroidery, most of us just enjoyed our time there admiring these beautiful pieces.

After a long stay at the embroidery shop we were taken to the Mongolian BBQ restaurant next door. It was already filled with people from different tours, and it seemed to be mostly Sinorama tours from different countries. I honestly believe that the factory provide free lunch to the tour groups when they visit this complex here.

Just like any other Mongolian BBQ places, you pick the meat, vegetables, and seasoning that you want and they cook it on the giant grill for you. Here, they served beef, pork, and chicken with many different kinds of vegetables. They also had self-service rice, soup, salad, fruits on the side. It's all-you-can-eat if you line up fast enough. The problem was they did not give us enough time here to enjoy the food before they lead us upstairs to the cashmere shop.

The cashmere shop

Huangpu River Cruise

This was not a good day to go on a river cruise as it was raining continuously. By now, my shoes were all soaking wet which made it quite uncomfortable for the rest of the day. Our bus dropped us off at the Shiliupu Marina to board the 3:00PM cruise.

Waiting to board the boat for the river cruise.

It was still raining outside as we board the boat, so everyone stayed in and there were not enough chairs on deck. They closed off the front part of the ship for people who were willing to pay 30RMB extra for the 'VIP' seating which included drinks and snacks. No takers on this sailing though.

We had the 'front row' (only row) seats cruising along the Huangpu River, with the new Pudong district on one side...

...and the historical buildings on the Bund side.

It would have been beautiful cruising on this river in the evening.

Back to the Shiliupu Marina in the rain.

Then we were taken to Nanjing Road for some free time and shopping. Nanjing Road is the pedestrian street with many shopping opportunities. We were not interested in malls but found a drug store/pharmacy type of shop to get some needed Chinese medicine. There were many French Canadians shopping for prescription drugs here also. We ran into this same Sinorama group several times later on. It seemed that they all came prepared with prescriptions in hands and lead by their tour guide as interpreter. I was kind of shocked by what I saw.

After Nanjing Road, we were taken to a Szechuan restaurant for dinner where the food was spicy and greasy.

Our last stop for the day was the Acrobatics show. She bought a Chinese flute at the restaurant and having some fun playing as we rode the bus to Ritz Carlton for the Acrobatics show.

A quick picture as we went into the show room.

The acrobatics show was fascinating, but I have to admit that I slept through most of it and only saw the beginning and the ending of the show.

Sinorama China Tour Day 1 & 2 LAX-YVR-PVG

Sinorama China Tour--Scenic Landscapes, Rural Villages 10 Days+5-night Yangtze River Cruise, November 10 to November 24, 2015 #1

We found this tour on Travelzoo in the beginning of 2015 and booked right away because of the attractive rate that seemed to be unbeatable with the interesting itinerary. After our experience with European American Travels on our trip to Turkey a couple of years ago, I did not want to deal with a travel agency that is not local anymore. For one thing, I have never heard of 'Sinorama' and they are based in Canada which is far away enough for us to do anything if something happens. We called our own travel agent and asked if she can book this tour for us and she agreed. Everything was handled nicely by our TA from the beginning which was the right move on our part.

We have visited China many times, on different tours to different cities. This itinerary will take us to the less traveled parts of Guangxi, including the beautiful cities of Guiling and Yangshuo which we visited on our very first trip to China in 1988. We have always wanted to go back to these places and this would be a welcomed opportunity for us to see the changes. We will also visit the terraced rice fields in Longji, Sanjiang (Liuzhou), to experience the minority culture of Dong, Miao, and Zhuang in the villages. After receiving our e-tickets from Sinorama about three weeks before the trip, we were ready to go! 

Day 1 and 2--Los Angeles-Vancouver-Shanghai (November 10 & 11, 2015)

When we got our e-tickets from Sinorama, we realized that we will have to fly bright and early from LAX to Vancouver to make the connection to Shanghai. I suspect Sinorama finds the cheapest tickets available at the last minute (just like European American Travel) and booked those seats for their tours. Seats on all the flights were pre-assigned and cannot be changed until check-in for most people. We managed to be able to upgrade our seats online for some reason. Not sure if it was because of our bookings through our TA and they handled that separately. We were also the only two from the L.A. area flying this route. We found out later on that everybody else from the L.A. area flew from LAX to Beijing then made the connecting flight to Shanghai using Air China.

On November 10, we left our house at around 4:00AM and made it to LAX around 5:00 for our flight out at 7:20 on Air Canada Rouge. We arrived Vancouver on time at 10:11, went through Canadian Immigration quickly for our transit in Terminal M. This is a huge terminal but with clear signage showing exactly where one needs to go. After finding our boarding gate, we thought it would be a good idea to get some breakfast or brunch before boarding our flight. There were many choices and they all looked appealing but we finally settled for some won ton noodle.

The beautiful terminal M in Vancouver.

Food Court

Not your typical won-ton and beef brisket noodle, still delicious though.

Our plane waiting for us.

Settled in our exit row seats. We had paid extra for the seats, wanting extra leg room for the long flight. It turned out that this flight was very empty and we could have saved some money taking the regular seats. The window seat next to us was not occupied either. One disadvantage about this exit row was the proximity being so close to the restroom.

First meal

working on my Sudoku

Food was quite decent. I think this was some kind of creamy chicken.

MOR's pasta

Menu on the IFE

2nd meal--beef stroganoff

Watching a Chinese movie

a whole bottle of red wine

After our 12-hour flight, we finally arrived at Shanghai Pudong Airport. We met up with the tour guide who was waiting for us at the exit after we picked up our luggage. We also met the rest of the group but noticed that they had yellow badges whereas the two of us had purple badges. I double-checked with the tour guide and she assured us that we were at the right place. She said unless you want to wait for the rest of your group which will come in two hours later. After she counted heads, we boarded the bus with group 2 to the hotel. Summer was a very pleasant, upbeat local guide who spoke English fluently. Unfortunately, we only met her a couple of times because we were assigned to bus #1 with a different Tour Leader and tour guide. 

Inside bus 2, a nice coach.

Our tour leader Mi-Nan was waiting for us at the hotel so we got our room keys quickly and settled in. Our heavy bags were delivered to our room timely.

Our room at the Wyndham Bund East Shanghai in the Yangpu District, near the Yangpu Bridge. It was around 7PM and we had the evening free to explore on our own to find dinner.

Spacious and modern room...

...with a huge bathroom, notice the TV above the bathtub.

a separate shower

Entry way

On our way to the hotel from the airport, Summer already pointed out the places nearby. A huge shopping mall was just two blocks away from the hotel so it was an easy find. We went down to the basement of the mall and found Yang's Dumpling which I have read about on Tripadvisor. Naturally, that was where we settled for dinner.

We ordered the combination dumplings, which we picked up right away from the kitchen. They were pre-made so they were not as fresh and hot as I liked them to be. We had to wait for the order of the original dumplings which turned out to be much better because they were freshly cooked.

Horrible curry-flavored beef soup. Tasted like dirt water.

This stuffed bean curd soup was much, much better!

Juice gushing out from the freshly made original dumpling.

Entrance to the restaurant. No English spoken here but they have pictures showing everything. This is cheap eats, it only cost us around $8USD for this meal.

After our simple dinner, we walked back to the hotel and called it a night. Slept well until around 3AM when we woke up due to jet lag ready for our first day of this tour.