Where in the world is Kat Kong?: Wuzhen and Shanghai

The tour bus left the hotel at around 8:15am, destination Shanghai, with some sightseeing in between. Our tourmates ranged from young adult to retirees and most of them were easy to get along with. However, there was one man in particular whom we'll call Rich (for "rich man"). He looked to be in his 60's. Rich would be on his cell phone constantly, talking business in the bus, during meals, while we were sightseeing, probably even in the bathroom! I thought this was a vacation? I don't know how his wife put up with it. I was so glad that we weren't sitting with him during mealtime, as the tour group was split between 2 10-person tables and we were lucky not to be assigned to his table, though we could still hear him and that cellphone ringtone. Hardly any of the tour group talked to him. A few eventually made conversation with him around the 3rd day of the tour, probably after they heard him talking loudly about the millions of dollars of business he was generating.

We make a stop at Wuzhen, a 1000+-year-old ancient city that still has permanent residents. Apparently the government pays people to live here (many of them are elderly), in order to keep the city "alive", but I don't know if I'd want to live in a tourist attraction. We walked by a lot of the homes and could peek in a lot of them as the front doors were left open, maybe to catch the breezes, since I don't think they have air conditioning. I couldn't call this home, with hundreds, maybe even thousands of tourists walking by every day if you have an apartment on a main walkway. The city itself is what you'd expect an ancient Chinese city to look like. You could film a kung-fu movie here. The waterways going through the city add to its appeal. There were exhibits where you could see how the people lived back then, the types of crafts they made, and antique furniture on display. Our sightseeing tour included a boat ride down the main canal. The boat guide unfortunately did not sing for us like in Venice; we did ask though!

After lunch, other sightseeing stops included two tea houses. The first one sold green tea. I believe a bundle of the "better quality" tea (about the size of a personal watermelon) was being offered for about US$100, ouch! The sales pitches were not as intense as in a timeshare sales office, but I was impressed with the tactics to get us to buy super-expensive green tea. There were many "tea rooms" where tour groups were corralled into, with doors closed. The employees worked in pairs, the main host pitching how good the tea was, and another person pouring samples of tea for everyone to try. Apparently there's a trick to pouring the hot water into the tea cup as to not crush the leaves, a flick of the wrist or something. To me, it was all just a show. The best part was this "magic trick": the host put some uncooked rice in a glass and poured iodine in it, even "accidentally" getting some on her finger to show that it stained her skin. Then she poured hot water into the glass, and the iodine spread. She poured the water out and showed that the rice is also stained. Then she poured hot green tea into the glass, and voila, you see the stain start to disappear and the rice is becoming whiter every second! The host reasoned that if the tea can clean the rice of iodine, think of what it would do to your bodies. After that, many of our tour members decided to buy the tea! I'm sure tea does do something to the iodine, and in general is good for you, but having the employees tout that it'll get rid of diabetes, gout, heart disease, etc...it's not a cure-all. I think people thought this tea would be a miracle elixir. Some of them bought 2-3 bundles of tea. We hurried out of there! The second tea house sold chrysanthemum tea. It was interesting as I had not seen tea made like that before, and it tasted good and had a wonderful aroma. The prices were cheaper, but we didn't buy. Another interesting thing about these tea houses is that they are set up like IKEA (or the exit from a Disneyland ride)...once you enter, it'll take you a while to get out of the building as they make you snake through aisles of merchandise. We managed to get away with not buying anything except for a pack of cookies, which ended up being stale. :(

The bus makes it into Shanghai, and we stop at the Xintiandi entertainment area. There are all sorts of stores and eateries here. We take a walk around to admire the architecture. This area is very much in contrast to what we saw in Wuzhen; goes to show how much has changed in the past thousand years. I wonder what the United States will look like in a thousand years.

We did have lunch and dinner today, but no pictures as it was not very exciting. I believe we had water shield soup again, so I did have to try the wormy leaf again. I should mention the ritual of washing the cups, bowls, plates, and chopsticks; the waiter brings a kettle of hot tea and a large bowl to the table just for this purpose. You can do it in however order makes sense, but what I do is pour the tea into the rice bowl, swish the rims and the inside of the tea cup in it. Then take the plate, hold it over the large bowl, and pour a bit of the rice bowl tea onto it to swirl and clean it. Then I pour the rest of the rice bowl water over my chopsticks into the large bowl. And voila...place setting is now "sterilized".

After dinner, we head over to the riverbank to see Shanghai at night, with the Bund and the Oriental Pearl Tower all lit up. It's so beautiful. What was funny was that some of the tour members didn't want to get off the bus to go to the riverbank! Uh, this is quintessential Shanghai. Even if you've been to the city before, it's still nice to see it all lit up at night. What is wrong with these people? They should drink some of that hundred-dollar tea and get more energy. ;)

We head to the hotel, and guess what?!?! We got LOST! Again! The local tour guide had to hail another taxi to get us to the Chateau Star River Pudong. The taxi driver was also a bit lost as well. This hotel apparently had been open only for a few months, which was why no one really knew the location. We finally get there, and this is definitely a 5-star hotel. The lobby was beautiful. The staff were very friendly; the bellman accompanied us all the way up to the room, explained how things worked in there (like lights, TV), unwrapped brand new slippers for us, and refused to take the tip we offered him! The room was huge and even had a glass bathroom (thank goodness there were shades in there as I was sharing a room with my parents!). The bathroom had a TV that was hidden *behind* the mirror so you could watch it from the bathtub, furnished with a waterproof remote. The beds were already turned down with cute boxes of white heart-shaped chocolates. The shower had awesome water pressure with a huge rain shower head. The mini bar was complimentary - it included soda and beer.