Shanghai, China Part II

6

Friday, February 8, 2019,    Shanghai , China 

Friday was another 90% chance of rain. Oh my! That didn’t stop us. We caught the metro #1 for one stop and then took # 10 for another stop to go to Xin Tian Di Road.

 We headed out to meet  our new friend, Mike for lunch around 11:30.

 He insisted on taking us to a 6 star restaurant called Crystal Jade Restaurant in a posh part of Shanghai. 

Mike ordered the most delicious  concoctions that our tongue has ever  tasted....besides Kay's Kitchen...of course.....ha ha!

 I think we had about 14 different items....all wonderful....but no second helpings....thank goodness...because we were stuffed just trying one of each! We would have given this restaurant a ten star rating!!!

We have every intention of coming back to this area to spend some more time exploring!

The area was full of trendy restaurants and bars as well as the infamous building where The Communist Government began. The area was very upscale with high end boutiques and ritzy restaurants and bars, all handsomely laid out with lots of phenomenal landscaping.

After lunch the rain had stopped for a short time giving us a few moments to walk about the area. It was really the more modern side of Shanghai!

We said our final farewells to Mike hoping to see him again in the future, maybe on the other side of the world.

That evening we went to a great little hot pot restaurant where you pick your own specific ingredients and they fix it right up.

 That was an outstanding meal as well. We met the owner....oh so young and full of energy. It was  treat to just talk with him. He loved practicing his English with us.

He treated us to two Chinese ice teas.....very sweet.

This was one of our favorite Shanghai restaurants....because we knew what we were getting....no surprises!

      After dinner we ran through the rain drops to get a few pics of the skyscrapers lit up that evening.

                                             Shanghai night lights are really spectacular!

                                    People's Square was even a sight of  grand night lights!

Saturday morning we took the metro using line 7, 4 and 12 to the Shanghai Museum of Natural History. 

                     The subway had a beautiful mosaic picture of animals at the stop for the museum.
We were excited to find no queue into the building, but once we got in we discovered that....

about every parent with a child in Shanghai had decided to get out of their apartment to explore the museum. Oh my gosh….we went to the top floor thinking we would escape the crowd and there were even more people there.

The museum was FABULOUS! It had an awesome display of animals from all over the world.

Larry commented that the taxidermy who got this job must be a millionaire. Upon walking into the building you were told the story of the Big Bang Theory. 

Life size dinosaurs were displayed beside the actual artifacts of skeleton remains.

There were rooms designated to birds,  

(blue feet of the boobie)

                                                                               mammals,  

                                                                      amphibians...…..

                                                              fish, (a sunfish with Larry)
 insects, African animals, plants, and water life......so much to look at....it was almost overwhelming.

                             We especially enjoyed the kimono dragons...… and

Larry's favorite, the moose!

We spent about three hours in awe of the displays. It was enjoyable to be inside…. out of  the cold rainy temps.

On Sunday the sun shone for the first time today. We packed up and a driver picked us up in front of our airbnb around 11:00 am and...…

took us to Wusongkou Port (about an hour drive away) where we boarded the Holland America Westerdam. We had lunch and unpacked. The ship was docked for another day in Shanghai so we decided to relax and get an early start for one more day in Shanghai.