(this happened on) 13^th November 2010

G&T Take A Bus Tour

We awoke feeling almost human, we arose slowly and went out for a breakfast at a local Coffee shop. Tes had lasagna, an interesting choice for breakfast but since it was 10:30am I guess you could call it brunch. I had eggs Benedict, although it was not eggs Benedict it was much better, it was poached eggs on fresh spinach, on an English muffin, with smoked salmon on top and smothered in Hollandaise sauce, and apart from the fact that the eggs were a little well done for my liking, it was indeed a Kingly brunch.

We headed down Nanking Street and found the tourist bus. We paid the fee, which seemed a little steep at 300 Yuen each, but as time went on I saw the value in this and the ticket was valid for 48 hours. (this turned out to be one of our better purchases and decisions of the trip)

The bus zoomed around the city and we sat on top at the open back, listening to the audio guide which was very good. I took loads of Photos and the sun was shining. This tour is well worth the money even if you only go around once, it really gives a good impression of the City and the beautiful and changing architecture.

We jumped off at the River Bund and strolled along it. Tes was very impressed and of course you get that great view of the Pudong Business District with the backdrop of the 19^th century Euopean architecture along the Bund.

We stopped at a funny looking tower along the bund, no doubt something to do with controlling river traffic in days gone by. Up the very steep spiral staircase and we had a great view. We had a very light lunch, a little Sushi and a glass of wine, after all breakfast was not long ago and fairly substantial.

We wanted to take the second route available with the bus tour, and walked along the bund further hoping to find the stop. It was a lot further than we imagined and at some point we nearly gave up. By the time we got there it was nearly 4pm and knowing that the buss made it’s last round at 5pm we decided that returning back to our Hotel would be wiser. There was a stop right outside our Hotel.

We had a quick stop for fresh batteries and decided it would be a good idea to do a night walk of Nanking Street. Now this turned out to be a very long trek indeed. We thought it would be fun to find the Hard Rock Café and buy our friends some Hard Rock Café Shanghai T-shirts. After two hours of walking we could not locate the Hard Rock and were getting very tired. Finally I discovered that the restaurant has been closed for some years. We took a cab back to the Hotel, weary and tired, we decided on the little Turkish restaurant we had spied earlier.

-       Fried Cod balls with orange sauce

-       Fried Zuchini

-       Mixed meat platter (Lamb, Beef, Kofta etc)

-       Green Salad with Goats Cheese & Olives

Washed down with Mango Yoghurt Shake (Tes) Tsingtao Beer (Guy)

This meal was excellent and quite a surprise. We were a little overwhelmed with Chinese food and it felt like something different and this was very welcome. My only complaint was that the Cod was nothing like described and not particularly nice, however the meat platter, along with some very nice Chick Pea (Garbanzo bean) Rice and flat bread was delicious and the salad, a perfect foil to the heavy meat. We polished everything off except the fish.

We dragged our tired bodies to bed.