Shanghai, PRC - Oct 20, 2014

This morning Jan and I headed out early to get two of the 5,000 entry passes for the Shanghai Museum. So it was off to the Metro station to learn how to work the system here (we had been here before so I had a pretty good idea, but it had been a few years) as the shuttle did not begin until 9 am. Sorry there is no pictures of our first ride, well this is for two reasons, it was rush hour so we had to push ourselves into an already packed train and once in you could not even raise your arms to take a picture - we had a human message for the one station until we could transfer to a less busy line. The last time we were in train that packed was in Manila a few years ago, some of you may remember that fun ride for a long way with no air conditioning.

We surfaced at the People's Square and the Shanghai Museum and what an incredible museum this is. This museum is home to over 110,000 artifacts, some dating back as far as 11th-14th Century BC - amazing. Over four floors the museum itself is a work of art as it houses pottery, porcelain, paintings, bronze, calligraphy, jade, furniture and coins. One could spend a full day here but it is possible to see everything within a few hours. This museum also has a great gift store. On a budget? Total cost from the ship and the museum, 50 cents each, now that's value. As mentioned the museum allows up to 5,000 visitors a day and at no charge. Here is a tip, if you are entering the museum from the main entrance (the side with all the lion statues out from) and there is a huge line up, go around to the opposite side, same screening devices but usually no line up. You can guess which entry we used.

From here and for another 50 cents each we took the Metro over to the Pudong side where all the huge and high skyscrapers are including our target skyscraper, that being the Shanghai World Financial Centre or better known as the "Bottle Opener". A few years ago we ventured up to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Building so this time around we thought we would go a bit higher to the 100th floor of this structure. Not for the faint of heart for those with height issues as the floor crossing the top part of the bottle opener is made of glass, allowing you to stand and see the street below - pretty cool.

After a quick Starbucks break we spent another 50 cents each to Metro ourselves to the Yuyuan Garden district to spend our last few Yuan in the old city market streets. The chanting of the Buddhist monks led us into another amazing Temple, which was is full session, what great luck. We strolled back along The Bund to catch the last shuttle at 4 pm for our 5:30 departure from this amazing city. So all in all an amazing three days here in Shanghai that will be remembered forever.

Hope you enjoy our pictures os our last full day, this upload is in two sessions...