Our final surprise of the night was to head back to the Bund, where we got to enjoy the beautiful City of Shanghai by moonlight! Wow!
We weren't the only ones enjoying the Bund at night. The crowds were crazy, but in a very fun way!
I honestly can't think of a more appropriate way to remember this beautiful city!
We will leave our hotel at 4:15 tomorrow morning (we are the first one's out), and will make our way back to reality, but we will never forget the many sights and people of this wonderful country!
Each Gate-1 trip ends with a farewell dinner, giving everyone a chance to say goodbye, and to thank our amazing tour guide for "herding us cats" for the last three weeks. The tour guides job is not an easy one, so it is really nice to be able to show our appreciation in a nice quiet setting. It's also sun to have a chance to get dressed up a little bit and relax after so many days of hot, sweaty and super fun!
As usual, there was so much delicious food! We will definitely miss this part of our vacation!
Sweet and sour fish, oh my!
Little cream filled rice balls for dessert.
The farewell dinner is usually the last outing of the trip, but tonight, in Shanghai, they still had one more little surprise for us!
Right next door to China Town was the classical Yuyuan Garden (Garden of Happiness) built during the Ming dynasty. This beautiful and garden features pagodas, lakes and magnificent pavillions. It was built by one of the Emperors for his parents so that they could enjoy the beauty of China without having to go out into the city.
Reflexology stones in many different designs all over the garden. It really does give your feet a massage as you walk on them, but I wouldn't want to try it bare foot.
When we were done with our tour of the garden, we had about an hour on our own to spend more time in the gardens, or to go back out into China town to do some shopping. Steve and I decided to sit for a minute in the garden and just enjoy the peacefulness. But it didn't take us long at all to strike up a conversation with a girl and her mom who were sitting next to us.
Once again, we saw so many amazing things, but our interactions with the locals is always our favorites. We love understanding more about their lives and just enjoying their friendliness!! We did about 90% of this hour conversation using Google Translate. What an amazing tool for traveling!
This afternoon, we visited the "China Town" section of Shainghai. Since Shanghai was occupied by the British and French during most of it's developing years, there was very little "Chinese" feel to the city. So this small area of the city became known as China Town.
Chuck found Confucius!
There was even a food court in China Town.
It was so much fun to feel like we were back in China!! Shanghai is such a unique city with such an "un-China" like feel. So this was quite refreshing!
