Holiday Weekend

We had a three day weekend for the Moon Festival in the middle of September and took this opportunity to finally do a bit of sightseeing. On Sunday afternoon, we had Jessica, our first babysitter ever, come to our house at 3:00 and Michael and I headed to the Bund. We took a taxi to the nearest subway station (about 20 minutes away) and then took the subway to the Bund. This seems to be the easiest way to get into the city. Michael and I spent a couple of hours wandering around the Bund shopping area and then walked to the viewpoint and looked at the Pearl Tower and buildings in the Pudong area across the river. It was raining and fairly miserable, but it was nice to get out. We then stopped at a local Chinese restaurant where no one spoke English and had a disappointing meal. When we arrived home, the kids were in bed and the house was clean.

Heading to the Subway Station














Nanjing Road East -- Pedestrian Shopping Area















Pearl Tower in Pudong














On Monday, Michael participated in an SAS golf tournament so I decided to take the kids to the Shanghai Zoo. It rained on the way to the zoo, but stopped by the time we arrived. The zoo is quite big and has a lot of animals. We saw pandas, snakes, lions, tigers, and we even attended an elephant show. After two hours of wandering around, we were all hot, tired and cranky so we slowly made our way to the exit and fortunately found a quick taxi home.

Elephant Show














Pandas at the Zoo














The Duck Pond at the Zoo
















We arrived home just in time for a huge storm to start. There was heavy rainfall, lightning and thunder. The storm caused Michael's golf game to end early and also caused a power outage in our apartment for three hours. The kids took a bath by candlelight which was a new experience and the power went on just in time for bed.