"I think we're lost" Shanghai Edition

So, we were determined to navigate our way around one of the largest cities in Asia with very little knowledge of the language. Nice thought, but a bad idea. We planned to go to Suzhou, a small town outside of the city. First we had to find the train station. We asked our concierge who gave us directions. Little did we know his directions were wrong. We wandered a neighborhood of Shanghai with his directions for over an hour, only to find out that we were in the wrong place. By the time we made it to the station, it was too late to take the long train ride and expect to be back in the city that night.

We went to the Jade Buddha temple in the city instead, which we found with ease. The temple had several shrines to Buddha, including the White Jade Buddha, which was stunning. It was the first temple for the girls, so they were very fascinated to see all of the different parts of the temple: the shrines, the bell, chanting monks, and lots of Buddhas.

We went to dinner at a local family owned Chinese restaurant. Hannah was so surprised that she liked all of the food we ate. She was so afraid that she would go hungry while in China, quite the opposite! All of the girls practiced their chopstick skills before coming to Asia, so they were prepared to see a lack of forks and spoons. I was very impressed at how easily they adjusted after only a day in China.

The next day we were determined to find this town. We took the train after visiting the Shanghai museum to Suzhou. Once again, we got very lost when we arrived. We were unable to find the old part of the city, but we did see a Confucian Temple and had some delicious Chinese food in the heart of the town. Poor Hannah: she is a car magnet. We would be crossing a street and the cars would veer directly for her. She would scream and run faster than anything I have seen to the other side. She did not find this funny at all, but she did make some government guards laugh (which is not an easy thing).

We took the high speed train back to Shanghai and walked the Bund at night. We also had to repack as we would be leaving for Xian early the next morning.