Short version: Hot. Amazing!! Hot. Beautiful and exotic! Hot. Don't feel so good... HOT! Reeeeealy don't feel so good.....
Saturday was our first full day in Shanghai and we took a cab to the YuYuan Gardens and Bazaar. Thanks to jet lag, we woke up super early, so the place was practically deserted when we arrived -- which is the only reason you can see the Starbucks sign behind me in the first picture! A couple hours later, it was so crammed with people we could not have taken that picture.
And check out that amazing teapot fountain!
We walked about a while (and got pulled into a back alley by a guy selling fake designer handbags... but that's another story...) then went into the Gardens. The gardens were built by an administrator in the Ming dynasty and are quite elaborate and fun to get lost in, which would have been easier to do had there not been quite so many hoards of people on tours! The place filled up quickly and it was SO HOT. We were dripping the whole time. Then we ran out of water and it was STILL HOT, which is when I started feeling kinda rough around the edges.
So we went into Starbucks and got frozen drinks, then caught a taxi back to the hotel, and by the time we got there, I was definitely feeling reeeeally funky. A few minutes later I threw up (in the hallway on the way to our room...eew...), then spent the rest of the day in the hotel room alternately feeling HORRIBLE, sleeping, and trying to finish up the slides for my talk and edit the slides for 5 other presentations.
Sometime in the middle of the evening my boss arrived in Shanghai and she called to check on me when she got an email I had sent her earlier saying I wasn't feeling well. We determined that it was probably some kind of food poisoning that should go away quickly -- which it was, because by Sunday morning, I felt fine.
Will post more on the Gardens later...
Saturday was our first full day in Shanghai and we took a cab to the YuYuan Gardens and Bazaar. Thanks to jet lag, we woke up super early, so the place was practically deserted when we arrived -- which is the only reason you can see the Starbucks sign behind me in the first picture! A couple hours later, it was so crammed with people we could not have taken that picture.
And check out that amazing teapot fountain!
We walked about a while (and got pulled into a back alley by a guy selling fake designer handbags... but that's another story...) then went into the Gardens. The gardens were built by an administrator in the Ming dynasty and are quite elaborate and fun to get lost in, which would have been easier to do had there not been quite so many hoards of people on tours! The place filled up quickly and it was SO HOT. We were dripping the whole time. Then we ran out of water and it was STILL HOT, which is when I started feeling kinda rough around the edges.
So we went into Starbucks and got frozen drinks, then caught a taxi back to the hotel, and by the time we got there, I was definitely feeling reeeeally funky. A few minutes later I threw up (in the hallway on the way to our room...eew...), then spent the rest of the day in the hotel room alternately feeling HORRIBLE, sleeping, and trying to finish up the slides for my talk and edit the slides for 5 other presentations.
Sometime in the middle of the evening my boss arrived in Shanghai and she called to check on me when she got an email I had sent her earlier saying I wasn't feeling well. We determined that it was probably some kind of food poisoning that should go away quickly -- which it was, because by Sunday morning, I felt fine.
Will post more on the Gardens later...
Awesome. Eagerly waiting the next installment. Do I see a new story for you to write in the making? Exotic locals, dark alleys, vomiting?
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