We began our morning moving from our grungy hotel to the Astor House. I had reserved a "celebrity" room at the Astor House as a Christmas present for Andrea. While no longer a top Shanghai hotel, Astor House is Shanghai's most historic accommodation, dating back to the 1840s. In the case of our room, it was used by Charlie Chaplin on two occasions.
The hotel itself, while definitely looking and feeling old, had real character.
This plaque on the wall made me laugh pretty hard:
My primary interest at the zoo was to see the pandas, so we headed straight there once we arrived.
The pandas were certainly popular, but I was pleased that we were still able to get up close.
We spent at least ten minutes watching the pandas--probably more time than I have ever spent watching an animal at the zoo. They were pretty fun to watch: very active, playful, and animated.
Eventually we went off to see what else there was to see.
My favourites were hippos (one of which was a baby);
giraffes;
a bactrian camel;
and many varieties of bear (although, despite being advertised, there did not seem to be a polar bear).
Something that surprised us was how many people were throwing/dropping garbage into enclosures (the bear pens seemed especially popular for this). Some of this was simply people trying to feed the animals, but at times it seemed people were intent on harassing the animals for no good reason at all. It was quite troubling.
After the zoo we took the metro back to Nanjing Road where we ate dinner and then walked down to the Bund for a final time to enjoy the evening view. We were amazed at how many people were down there.
There were also many couples getting wedding photos taken; mostly the brides were in red dresses, and even the grooms seemed to be donning red--why, we are not sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment