June 20 - Fly to Shanghai and visit the Old City and Yu Garden.

This was Monday June 20.   We  were up early that morning and took one last look at Hong Kong and got to the airport  early, we finally got off about 11 a.m.  We had eaten breakfast and they served us lunch right away.  A chicken rice dish, cabbage salad, yogurt, roll and butter.  A little later with drinks and a cup of hogndog ice cream.  We were in the air for two hours.  At the Shanghai airport, we met Elaine our first guide.  She had been waiting for us quite awhile, she had a sign up with our names on it.  She had a driver with a van and bottles of water for us to drink.   It took us about 30 minutes to get to down  town.



Shanghai is is noted for its distinctive design at the top of their high rise buildings, one looked like a wagon wheel, another looked like a space ship,  like a flower, and like a bottle opener.      So we had fun taking pictures of them.   We saw the Space needle right off and wanted to stop and get pictures of it and Elaine told us we would do that later, as she wanted to take us to see the Yu Garden, locate in the center of the old city.  One of the most lavish and finest in china.  The home of the Provident Lord at one time. 



Our guide Elaine up at the right, she was a college graduate and spoke perfect English.   They make a good salary in the summer being guides for tourist.  She had lots of information to tell us about Shanghai.   As we rode into towards Shanghai, we actually saw that there were farms and small home in the country side, the down town had lots of high rise building, but not like Hong Kong buildings being so close together.  Much of the 1930 Shanghai has disappeared Elaine told us, but some of the down town strip called the Bund, you can still see glimpse of the pre war decadence of glamour bars, restaurants and shops.  




More of their building, there was one that look like a castle was built on top of it, but I could never get a picture of it.



The Entrance to get to the Yu Garden



There were lots of tourist mostly Chinese.  John is busy taking pictures, I hung back and took pictures of them.




This was really an interesting part of old town Shanghai.  The area is divided into six areas.  I'm not sure if we went to all the areas.




The Inter Garden ponds, featuring peaks, cliffs, and winding coves and gorges, and lots of golden fish. The zig zag bridge and mid Lake Pavilion.  Ten Thousand flower tower.   Here John is busy taking pictures and so are the rest of us.




The Grand Rockery, made of huanshi stone.  Jade Stone peak( read the sign) a spring that created these rocks




See Derek and Rita through an round closure, you see the Dragon wall below, the grey titted ridges, each with a Dragon head and body.  Waterfalls, gardens, gold fish pond, lots of history there.




We took many pictures can't show them all.  See the little scupture on the roof  above.  We went through the Jade Magnificence Hall finished with Rose wood pieces from the Ming Dynasty




We had Elaine take this picture of us.  It's very Chinese.