OUR TRIP TO KOREA: July 2009

Hi all.

Here is the last post about our China adventure. Saturday July 18 our tour left Xi'an and flew to Shanghai. Our stay in Xi'an was too short. With more than 3,000 years of history represented by Neolithic villages, countless royal tombs, ancient pagodas and temples, there was so much more to see and experience. We'll have to come back!

Xi'an's bright, relatively new, clean airport is located (like most modern airports) a long way out of town. The flight to Shanghai took about 2 hours. It took about an hour to travel into our hotel from the new Pudong International Airport. We should have taken the new MAGLEV train into the city, it apparently only takes about 7 minutes, traveling over 400 km/hr(!). Our hotel in Shanghai, the Jin Jiang Tower, is located in the old French Quarter and is very nice (revolving restuarant on the 41st floor!), but check-in took over an hour. There were some room mix-ups and mis-understandings over what a "standard room" is. Maybe the smaller rooms and beds have something to do with the high costs of operating in Shanghai, the largest (over 20 million people!!!)and fastest developing city in China. Anyway, it basically took us the whole day to travel here. The overnight train to Xi'an seemed so much more efficient. With no time for any tour activities this day, we all retired to the hotel pool to cool off and chill out. The girls loved it! We then went up to the 41st floor restaurant for a great (big) buffet dinner with a revolving view of the amazing night lights of Shanghai. Check out the photos below.

Day 2 in Shanghai
Our main tour outing today was the Shanghai Museum. The museum is a beautiful, relatively new building located in People's Square just a kilometre and a half from our hotel. We didn't have too much time here - and the kids can only take so much "museuming" - so we briefly looked in on the calligraphy, coin, jade and painting galleries. We saw some pretty amazing and beautiful stuff, but didn't really have the time to get into any depth. And the air conditioning was a plus too. It was hot out (high 30's!). The trees in front of the museum were a-buzz (loudly) with the sounds of cicadas. After the museum we went for lunch at a restaurant over a high-end silk embroidery store. The embroideries were beautiful and expensive. They looked like paintings and cost a pretty penny (some were more than $20,000!). We then dropped in on a pearl store, had a lesson on pearls and then spent some cash (and plastic) on these more affordable trinkets. We bought the girls necklaces with neat star-shaped freshwater pearls. Deb opted for the more traditional big round white ones.

The rest of the afternoon was scheduled as free time, so we jumped in a cab and headed over to a nearby famous tourist attraction, Yuyuan Gardens. This traditional Chinese garden was built over 400 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. It is a beautiful, secluded (walled) place with lots of ornately designed buildings and pavilions, ponds, tress, plants and rocks. The rocks look to be mostly karstic limestone which were used to construct elaborate rockeries. The narrow alleyways arounf Yuyuan were full of souvenir shops, a famous tea house and lots of restaurants (including the ubiquitous KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks). We taxied back to the hotel to freshen up for an evening cruise with the group on the Huangpu River. This river runs between the famous Bund district with its classic 19th century colonial architecture and the east side with 21st century skyscrapers. Got some great photos. The cruise was late and it was a long day. The kids were very tired and hungry, so we treated them to take-out pizza when we got back to the hotel. They deserved it. (And we treated ourselves to a beer from a local convenience store.)

Day 3 in Shanghai
The Homeland tour group participants went their separate ways today. The other families left Shanghai to visit their daughters' home provinces and orphanages. We decided before the trip that we wouldn't visit Lili's orphanage this time, but would wait until she is older. So we started the day with goodbyes and best wishes to our new good friends. We then returned to the Yuyuan Gardens area to complete our Chinese souvenir shopping. Got lots of good stuff. Deb was delighted when she found a "everything for 2 yuan" store (that's about 30 cents!). We had some wonderful steamed dumplings at a famouns restaurant recommended by one of our Beijing friends. We wound down (and cooled off) with a swim in the pool back at our hotel and enjoyed a very nice, low-key dinner in one of the hotel restaurants. Shanghai also has so much more to see and do. We'll have to get back here again some day, preferably not in the heat of July.

Last Day in China
Our flight back to Korea left late in the afternoon of July 21, so we had the morning to wander around the hotel's neighbourhood, the old French Quarter of Shanghai. Our hotel, the Jin Jiang Tower is just down the street from the venerable Jin Jiang Hotel, apparantly where President Nixon stayed during his historical visit to China in 1972. One block over is Huahai Road an upscale tree-lined shopping street with tailors, and name brand stores such as Rolex (not the knock-offs), Levis, Columbia and others. A little further down the road the shopping is not so upscale, with street vendors selling the usual trinkets and knock-offs (including DVD's of just-released movies for a buck a piece). A couple of blocks down the street we found the quiet and shady Xiangyang Park, where much to our girls' pleasure we stumbled across a small amusement park. They had a blast riding the kiddy rides. A great way for the girls to celebrate the end of our trip to China.

The flight back to Seoul was only about 2 hours long, but what a difference. We arrived in the early evening at Gimpo Airport (the old airport closer to the city than the international airport at Inchon) and found it was 10 degrees cooler than in Shanghai. Whew! Only 29, almost needed a jacket..... A very nice man working at the airport bus stand made sure we were on the right bus to our neighbourhood. In less than an hour we were tucking the kids into their beds and then us into ours. The trip to China was fabulous, but it was sure nice to be back "home" in Korea.

All the best,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Here are some photos of our last days in China.

Our hotel and room there.

View from the restaurant on the 41st floor and the glass elevator:

Shanghai street/expressway scenes.

Shanghai Museum scenes (unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the outsie of the museum).

At the pearl store (and story).

At the restaurant (when's the last time you saw a pull-tab?) and embroidery store.

Yuyuan Gardens:

Look who we ran into there, the Emperor of China and his family!!!! Actually it's one of the families on our tour dressed up for the occassion. And here we are in more pedestrian clothes.