China 2015 - ICanGarden.com

April 21

Today we leave Suzhou for a short coach ride to Shanghai. Once there we visit the incredible Shanghai Museum to put your trip to China into perspective. On this day we’ll visit Shanghai’s world class museum of Chinese art and culture. The new Shanghai Museum has ten special galleries of bronze, calligraphy, ceramics, furniture, jades, minority art, paintings, sculpture, seal carvings, coins and arts and crafts, together with a special gallery of donated relics and three temporary exhibition halls. It also contains an excellent gift shop with many attractive and fascinating books about Chinese culture and art, available in English. A great place to pick up quality souvenirs and mementos of your holiday.

Arrived into Shanghai in around two hours and once here we visited the beautiful and very pleasant Shanghai Museum before checking into our hotel, the Renaissance Shanghai Yu Garden. You can tell by the name that we are very close to one of the best areas to be in…Old Town. We had some relaxation time here…
I had brought my groups in here before and know they will love not just the hotel but the proximity to shopping and walking. From here it is just a five minute walk to Old Town and from here to the Bund if you walk, it will take you about twenty minutes at a nice pace.

Our rooms were the Deluxe rooms and had all you could want. Closet contains nice padded hangers as well as others, safe, slippers, bathrobe, iron and board. Bar area held a fridge, kettle, tea and coffee making. TV is a good size and includes CNN and CCTV which is English. Desk is glass and has a lamp on it as well as phone and to the side are two plug ins that will take your North American plugs without adaptors. There was also a transformer if you needed it. There are also three more plugins in the room if you need more. There is a settee with a couple of cushions and lamp behind it to read or relax. My kingsize bed was wonderful and nice to have six pillows on it. Nightstands and reading lamps on either side plus alarm clock. The bathroom is lovely and large and includes a walk in rain shower and soaking tub. Sink has adequate space to take your travel amenities and includes two bottles of water each day of your stay. There is a small mirror for close ups as well as a big mirror and good lighting in both the bathroom and shower. Big bath towels, hand towels and face cloths. I have to say how nice their bath amenities are. The bath gel and shampoo smell so nice. There is also hair conditioner, bar soap, toothbrushes, comb and a shower cap. It would have been nice to have included a razor and bath salts for the tub. The bathroom and bedroom are separated by a glass wall that has a blind that lowers if you need that. I like this very much as it brightens up the room a bit more when the lights are on. The halls are quiet but your door will slam if you do not hold it once opened. That would be the only thing that would be a negative.

I did not have anything other than breakfast but judging by that I expect the rest of the meals would be great. Such a good selection of hot and cold, American and Asian, pastries, fruit, yogurt, juices, cereals and they do eggs up the way you like them.

China Daily newspaper is available as well as others. They change money here as well with no exchange charges.

I will stay here again….

After this we have Afternoon Tea at Kathleen Waitan – the quintessential place to be and see the panorama of Shanghai and conclude our day
by taking in an evening show of the Shanghai Acrobats, a show that will leave you breathless!