Day 4, last full day in Shanghai and an early morning on day 5.

Breakfast each morning was included. Our Shanghai hotel served an excellent buffet.

The coffee was good and there was plenty of variety.

Shown above, tomatoe juice, a very good croisant, fried noodles, steamed pumpkin, fresh tomatoes, chicken sausage and my favorite discovery, canned Lychee fruit.

 After breakfast, the brave explorers had the hotel call us a cab.

They wrote our destination in Chinese and Pinyin (you can use our key boards to write out pinyin and most Chinese can read it) on a card with the hotels information. We gave it to the cab driver and we went on the second scariest cab ride in my life (The scariest was Chicago IL back in the 1980's).

The cab driver drove like mad, zipped in and our of places he should not have fit, darted around big busses and remained calm. There were no seatbelts.

The cab driver took us to the Jade Buddha Temple. 

Breathtaking.

These are two of a set of four gaurdian statues. One represents each direction and the element associated with it. They are much larger than life size.  

According to our guide book, this is the most popular Buddhist temple in Shanghai. It was built to provide a home for two statues of Buddha that were each carved from a single piece of jade. One is reclining, the other sitting in the classic position. Tourists are not allowed to photograph either statue, but they gave us the post card above. This is by far the nicest of the two anyway.

From the Jade Buddha Temple, we walked several blocks to the metro.

We rode the subway for a couple of stops, then navigated our way for several more blocks with the aid of a very good map and some kind people. 

We discovered that very few people outside the hospitality trades speak any English.

A map with English and Pinyin is a necessity.

This is the entrance to the Long Hua Temple and Pagoda.

Quite an amazing place, well worth the effort it took to get there. 

The big Iron things are incense burners. 

Worshipers buy huge bundles of incense, then light the whole bundle at once.

They bow and pray with the lit bundle, then place it in the burner.

The place smells great, but it is a good thing this part is done outdoors. 

My favorite Buddha from this temple is a lady.

She is associated with the harvest.

Doesn't she just look serene and kind? 

 We met this fine Cat on the way.

 One of the buildings in the French Concession area.

 For our last night in Shanghai, we had dinner and a show with our Friendly Plannet Tour Group.

If you saw my Wordless Wednesday post the other day, these guys will look familiar.

They were part of the Acrobat show. It was great!

This guy was pretty impressive too. 

The gentlemen in our party liked his dancing partners more.

After the show, it is back to the hotel. Early flight in the morning. 

 Cheers from the Shanghai Airport.

(Yes, I can find coffee anywhere.)

Next stop Xian China.

Part one of our Air China Breakfast.

No Lychee fruit but the yogurt drink was great and, 

part two includes mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, my chicken sausage, scrambled eggs and fried potato wedges. They brought me more coffee too!

It is hard to believe this was almost a month ago.

We have been back for about three weeks, and I still have not printed out any photos!

I did manage to get my suitcase put away finally.
I still have several blog posts to share about Xian and Beijing.

Cheers,

Kat