Last day in China :-(

Today, the 24th of October, is our last full day in China. Tomorrow we will fly to Busan and allow Meagan to be our host and guide.

We went back to the Jade Buddha Temple and made it through the gauntlet of beggars. Many of them had been there yesterday, and are probably there as you read this. The temple is impressive with plenty of places, surprise, to spend money. Sorry but no matched pair of Puxi are coming to Wadsworth. Also interesting, NO pictures of the reclining Buddha, but you can by souvenirs a few feet away.

Buddha

Story of the day; You just missed the bus. More beggars and more waiting. No Red Bus at the changeover point either, so on into the Art Museum. Very nice, but it only had one artist and while his work was impressive, there was a sameness to it.

The Red Bus showed up and we took it to get the Blue Bus to the Huangpu River Tour stop. Change of plans as Debbie said, 'Let's do it after dark.' We listened and she was right. So, we waited for the next Red Bus to get to other areas we wanted to see. (We could have walked.) The YuYuhan Garden area and Guchang Park were outstanding.

YuYuhan Garden Area

YuYuhan Garden Area

YuYuhan Garden

YuYuhan Garden

We walked back to the boat ticket office and were told NO cruise until 6:45 and NO tickets could be acquired before 6 PM so we walked down to No. 12 for the 5 PM chimes and a stop at the bronze bull designed by the same artist who did the Wall Street bull. A popular, get out of my picture, spot.

Got tickets, got the boat, got a good spot, and deleted as many pictures as I took. A win for Debbie by doing the cruise at night. If you have seen Skyfall, you have seen the sights that we saw, although we saw ours from the level of the river.  The Huangpu is as busy as the road with all manner of barge and ferry traffic.

Pearl TV Tower from The Bund.

The Pearl V Tower from the river.

It took three attempts to get a cab that would actually run the meter and 48RMB later, we were back at the hotel enjoying an honest to goodness American style hamburger before packing and getting ready for the pickup for the flight to Korea and Meagan.