Either Shanghai noon or Lullaby in Shanghai...

The second day we spend in Shanghai we had the opportunity to visit the sit of Trinity Church. It started out as a church, but later became office buildings, and then a movie theater. It is now being renovated to its original state. It was a beautiful church shaped like a cross, similar to many in Europe, and it was fun to sing in the sanctuary as a big group. Later in the day we were able to walk along the Bund. It is a walking area on the river that divides the two halves of the city. On one side is the old architecture and on the other is the new architecture, by new I mean within the last 16 years. We also got to visit an old, traditional shopping area that had many beautiful buildings in the old traditional Chinese architectural style. As a bit of a surprise that night we got to see an acrobatic show at the New Shanghai Circus. The show included diablos (big yo-yos on a string), contortionists, trapeze artists flying using fabric, strong men, acrobatics, plate spinners, a magician, bike tricks (mainly piling as many people as possible on one bike while riding it) and motorcyclists in a giant metal globe. It was like the traditional Chinese version of Cirque de Soleil.

The next morning we had the opportunity to go up into the Pearl Tower, (if you look at the pictures from two posts ago, it's in the city landscape picture, the building with the pink balls). They have two observation decks that we got to stand on, the first is about 265m or so, and has glass looking out. It was similar to floor to ceiling windows. Next we went down to 259m where we got to go on a glass walkway and look straight down. That one was slightly nerve wracking. Both were fun and interesting though. It was slightly cloudy so the view was not terrific but when they opened up we were able to see most of the city. In the tower we were also able to visit the museum of the history of Shanghai. It had replicas of the typical shops in the past and how the city looked at different times. It was fun to see how much the city has changed throughout history.

Unfortunately that was where our time in Shanghai ended. Our third night in China we spent on a train traveling from Shanghai to Wuhan (13 hours). Luckily we were (accidentally) in first class which meant that we got rooms that fit four apiece. In each room there was just enough space for four bunks (two on each side) storage was either under the lower bunks or above the door. Unfortunately for me, I did not get much sleep that night.