Shanghai - Day 11

The time has come to actually do something other than eat and shop. Today we went to the Shanghai Museum. This is a beautifully laid out building with 4 floors of exhibits. The floors are set around an open courtyard style stairwell....not quite sure how else to explain it. Each room is a specific exhibit....coins, sculpture, pottery, textiles and masks, furniture. It was a pleasure to wander around and everything could be viewed clearly. As we left the museum, the boys stopped to haggle for Rolex watches...again. We moved on and were approached by a group of 5 young students who were learning English and wanted to know all about us. They were really fun to talk to and were all in their early 20's, on holiday from Wuxi, near Suzhou. They told us they were going to a traditional Chinese Tea ceremony and asked us if we'd like to come. One of this girls, Ling Ling, spoke English very well. So well, she barely stopped to breathe! She was an absolute livewire. The tea ceremony was very interesting, and Ling Ling was able to translate everything our host was saying about the where the tea is from and about the traditions behind the serving of it. After the tea ceremony, we needed to get back to the hotel but it was raining and getting a taxi was near impossible. The young students were spread out along Nanjing Rd trying to hail taxis for us. Finally on the road, we were all starving and the boys convinced me we should go to Hungry Jacks for a quick bite as we were short on time. Tastes just as disgusting as in the west!!!! After a very quick change, we were picked up by Giselle to go to the Peking Opera. She had secured tickets for us and also permission to go back stage to see the actors get ready for the show. That was amazing to watch. To see the incredible costumes up close and watch the actors putting on the traditional pink and white make up was such a treat. We were stuck in Friday night gridlock on the way there, but it was worth it. We were whisked away from there to go to the 65th floor of another hotel for a reception by AustCham - the Australian Chamber of Commerce. This was another opportunity for us to promote the concert. John and I did an impromptu version of Chega de Suadade with John playing the raffle box!!
Job done, we headed back to the Peking Opera and arrived in time for the interval. Our seats were front row and there were people in our seats who quickly got turfed out. The lights on stage are so bright that it feels like the house lights are up. The audience talk out loud throughout the performance and seem to clap and cheer at strange (to us) places. I wondered whether we could take photos. No need to wonder - people even had long lens professional cameras and there were 2 professional looking video cameras. As we were sitting in the front row I had excellent view for my little camera! Back to the hotel for an early night for me, but the boys have gone to the JZ club to see the Latino band.