Dan and his colleagues were working at the University, and the rest of us took care of last minute things in Shanghai. Sue, Sarah, and Bruce checked out of our hotel and took a cab to the Shanghai Museum, where we had been a few days before. We spent quite a bit of time wandering through their wonderful gift and book shop, reading a lot and buying a few. Then Sue and Bruce headed back into the museum, while Sarah kept at it in the shop. This time we concentrated on the exhibits of bronze, calligraphy, and painting.
Here are a couple of pictures from our last day in Shanghai: school kids doing their morning exercises, as seen from our hotel room window, and a bronze water vessel at the museum, perhaps about 2 feet wide.
After lunch at the museum restaurant we got a cab to the university. It was clear that the driver had never been there before, but she managed, and with advice from one of the gate guards (universities appear to be fully contained within their own compounds) got us to the proper building where it took just one phone call for us to be met by one of the Chinese professors whom we knew.
Another banquet, this one in a private room at the student dining facility. The same sort of rotating buffet in the middle of the table that we had encountered at the previous banquet. The order of presentation of the various courses was a bit strange, as we had come to believe that the elaborately arranged fish was traditionally the last course. But there were a few more to come, including a small but genuine crab! We Marylanders dug into this with a gusto and skill that amazed our hosts.
Then into a bus and off to the airport, with time running a bit tight. Our worries were not required, however, as things went smoothly and without any great rush once we arrived there. Big Boeing 777. 682 mile trip. It was fun, but sometimes a bit unnerving, to watch the takeoff and landing from the camera mounted low at the front of the plane. We collected some marvelous examples of fractured English in the airline magazine and will quote a few of them once things settle down and we have a bit more time.
We were again met by a small bus provided by our hosts for the ride into the city, and for the rest of our time here as well. The road from the airport was quite a surprise to us, especially after the massively built-up urban area we encountered in Shanghai. Narrow, two lanes, old, concrete seams every 20 feet or so, dusty, and largely through a forest. We could see round-the-clock work in progress right next to us on what we took to be a new road or perhaps rapid transit, clearly in preparation for the Olympics in 2008. [Later - we learned that the road we took was indeed a back road. The main road was closed for late-night construction. But as the saying goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”]
We are staying at the Hotel Kempinski, a name we recognized immediately from our times in Berlin. It’s a part of a German development that includes Lufthansa. We could see a number of small German touches throughout.
It was a loooong day. We didn’t get settled into the hotel till well after midnight.
We’ll try to catch up our blog soon. We’re now just a day behind. The Great Wall yesterday was amazing! Today (Wednesday) we go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
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