Tour Begins-Thursday, September 05, 2013

We started the day with a lazy morning.  We had intended to get up and head over to the World Financial Center to get a view of downtown, but we actually slept until 7:30 this morning, so allowed ourselves the leisurely “we’re on vacation” morning instead.  So, this morning consisted of us having breakfast, packing to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and heading over to the Crowne Plaza to meet with our tour group.  We actually arrived about 15 minutes before them, and had just checked in when I saw a huge bus pulling in with someone waving from the back of the bus.  The tour group had just arrived!

So, we met Mark, our tour guide for the entire trip, as he came in to get everyone else’s keys and we got to see and talk to Mike and Mary Anne briefly.  As anticipated, we were the only people who didn’t do the Korean Air flight!

Bamboo forest on our way into the garden.

The afternoon consisted of a tour of Yu Yuan Gardens (several hundred years old) and the French Concession.  The Gardens were a lot of water and koi fish, plus some really interesting rock formations.  It also had a gorgeous Dragon wall.  We found out the dragon is made up of all different creatures – head of the horse, mane of a lion, claws of an eagle, body of a snake, and scales of a fish.  And some really beautiful buildings. 

We walked through this really wonderful looking shopping plaza on the way to and from the Gardens. 

Inside Yu Yuan Garden

Screened Scene

Old, New, and Nature. 
Note that the building in the background is still under construction. 
If you zoom way in, you can see iron work going up.

Dragon Wall

 

One of the buildings in a square outside of the Yu Yuan garden.

The Alleyway we took into Yu Yuan Garden

The French Concession was interesting architecturally from the outside, but there really wasn’t a lot to see there – you could have been in the back streets of Paris, which is cool, but it was all restaurants now.
Finished with dinner at the hotel (brought to us by SmarTours) and more free drinks in the bar (thanks to Theresa’s Gold status in Priority Club), which is where we’re writing this blog.  I think it might be an early night again!