I swear I've lost five pounds walking around this country.
I called hubby via Skype (holy crap I love that service) to say Happy V-Day, even though he's a day behind back there. It was really nice to hear his voice, and I miss him tons.
This morning we got up early to walk around the city. We took the subway over to the Pearl Tower and ascended to the observation decks to look around. The city of Shanghai is vast-- it extends out seemingly endlessly from the tower in every direction.
After the tower he hiked from the subway down to the Yuyuan Gardens, which are reached by working your way through a maze of tourist shops. It's unreal how aggressive the shopkeepers are in attracting peoples' attention. They will ahout anything to get you to come over and look, from "Hey lady, you beautiful," to my favorite "Lookee lookee, very cheap!". Sassy Jo even heard one woman shout out "Hey shopping lady, come and smell my wood!"
We went into the gardens for a look around and took some fantastic pictures, pausing to adjust cameras and take comic shots of each other. We had to be back for an early departure for the hall, so we scooted out of there after about and hour and a half and took a taxi back to the hotel.
The Shanghai Oriental Arts Center was our venue tonight and will be tomorrow too. It's an absoulutely beautiful venue, a veritable palace for the arts. Viewed from overhead it looks like a phaelenopsis orchid, with each petal a different performance hall or space. I would have loved to see the aerial view during our concert, as the roof is fitted out with lights tuned to change with the sounds produced inside.
The facilities inside were wonderful-- beautiful dressing rooms and a sparkling concert hall. Since Shanghai has much more English speaking residents, our manager was able to make our dedications in English, and the crowd was very responsive.
Only one more concert to go at this point, then we have a couple of days to play round in Shanghai before going home!
