Happy Chinese New Year!

Feb 19, 2015

Today was our 1st and only day to leisure, and we took advantage of it by sleeping in! Even though out start times haven't been too early, it was still a nice break. We leisurely ate our breakfast and set off for an unplanned adventure walking the streets of Shanghai.

At 1st we were hesitant to stray too far from the hotel, but armed with out trusty city map, and English translated street signs we ventured on. We stumbled up a little local park where people were playing with their dogs, playing badminton, practicing Tai Chi and even a guy working on his breakdance routine haha. We saw on our map there was a local brewery doing tours only a few miles away so we decided to head in that direction.

We walked in the sunshine on empty streets, which them grew more crowded as the buildings got taller. When we stopped for a few pics of the central square, April noticed we were standing across the street from the Shanghai Mary Kay building!! I knew MK was in China, but I had no idea where nor did I ever think we'd randomly run into the building :-D

Our walk continued on to the brewery only to arrive and find they were closed! Being New Year's day, 1 in 10 shops we passed were closed, so unfortunately it was a long walk for nothing more than exploring the city. We stopped at a local restaurant for lunch and were impressed with how far we got with only knowing how to say "hello" and "thank you"-there's a lot of pointing and smiling haha. After lunch we walked a few blocks more to visit another local park and a little people watching.

The walk home to the hotel ended at 4:45 and my feet were KILLING me! I was kinda proud of our independence in venturing out and exploring the city on our own (AND making it back home before dark) and we happily flopped down on the bed for a few hours. We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner and feeling pretty sick of Chinese food by now, we split a burger and pizza. Not bad for non-American chefs, and it hit the stop well enough.

Now we are back in our room lying around in our fluffy bed, drinking the last of our Great Wall cabernet, and getting ready for our last  day in China tomorrow ::sigh:: It's hard to believe we've already been here a week; although my feet would probably disagree haha.