Day 18: Science Museum and the Bund at Dusk

For our final day in China we decided to visit the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in the morning.

This ball in the front is actually very large.  You can see the tiny people walking around in front to get an idea of the size.  I think the top floor is 3 or 4 stories high.

Sculpture in the courtyard (I think this is the backside, we entered this way because the metro came up over here).

Inside, on the first floor, was a display with animals from the different continents.  It reminded me of a natural history museum and I suspect for people who may not get to a zoo very often, this is very educational.  

Africa

Asia

Life size bugs!

Maybe you remember hearing about this.  They grew an ear on a mouse using stem cells.  Since we visited here I have heard a few references to this, so I wonder how many times I heard this mentioned before and just never realized people were talking about this.

Butterfly display

Fish display

Nice little exhibit on robots

This robot solves the rubik's cube in seconds.  Visitors can twist it and mix it up, then you give it to the robot and it will solve it.  It was pretty neat to watch.

People can shoot the bow and arrow along side a robot.  Of course the robot shoots a lot better than the people do!  This is just someone who was doing it when we walked up, but after his turn both Ryan and I tried it out.

This is the computer used by a 13 year old to create a computer program of a chess game and a cartoon.  I believe this was something that made major news in China at the time, or os it appears from this description.  I can't find anything on this on the internet.

Interesting car design...perhaps for the future?

They had a great little exhibit on health and fitness.  It was very interactive and that was one thing I really liked about this museum.  It looked like it needed a lot of upkeep, but overall I thought it was well designed.

One fitness activity was table tennis, which is a very popular sport in China.

A section on diet, sports and health.

Boxing test for speed.

A multimedia demonstration of the inside of the human body.

There was also a ride to simulate digestion.  Of course I made Ryan get on this with me.  I have a student activity (for intro to nutrition, undergrad) that is sort of similar to this so I wanted to see if it gave me some new ideas for my students.

Fruits and veggies ready to be eat...and they look a little scared.

Once we loaded into the car (AKA food) we headed into the mouth.

Open wide!

And now we are in the mouth looking at the back of the teeth.

A lot of what happened next was...interesting...and in Chinese!  I understood the basics of what was going on, but honestly, some things I couldn't quite make sense of.  For example, I suspect this had something to do with an enzyme or maybe saliva.

Inside the intestines.

My favorite was the end.  Yes, we were expelled as waste!  Complete with sound effects and all!

For lunch we stopped at A Gan Xuan Restaurant, which was in the building next to the museum and attached to the metro station.  There is a giant knockoff market there.

Since it was our last day in China I wanted to make sure I tried everything I wanted to try, even if it meant ordering food and not eating it all.  This was an eggplant dish.

This was cauliflower that was stir fried.

I tried this shrimp dish, which is very similar to something I have had at a Chinese restaurant in Japan.

This is tofu that is smothered in a sweet and spicy sauce.  

At a bathroom stop later in the day I spotted this sign and really had to take a picture.  Definitely do not through fish bones in it.  It is important to look at the proper way to use a Western toilet.  Yes, squatting is dangerous!  It was not uncommon to see foot prints on the toilet seats when I was in China 9 years ago.  Just have to laugh to see the directions printed on a sign.

Our afternoon and early evening was spent strolling the Bund and just taking in the scenery and fresh air.  This is looking over to the Pudong side.

Here are some pictures of the old side, which has many old buildings and looks very European.  This area is known as the Bund.

These buildings now house various different things, but most contain a sign that states when it was built and some info about the building.

Here is a view of the river and Pudong from a higher vantage point.

This is the sign I was talking about that could be found on the front of the old buildings.

This is the lobby of the (I believe I am remembering this correctly) Shanghai Waldorf Astoria.  Lovely hotel on the Bund, but totally out of my price range!

After walking a ways down we decided to head back to Nanjing road by cutting down a parallel street.  I spotted this food cart on the street corner.  I took a picture from this distance, but as I got closer and went to another picture they yelled at me and swatted me off with a hot utensil (it had been in the pan before they swung it at me).  I have seen people get mad and I usually do ask if I can take a picture, but this time I was just going to try and take a fast one since there were people hovering around and I didn't want to interrupt business.  I couldn't even see what they were making but I assumed it was meat and couldn't eat it.  They were really mad and yelled a lot.  So I kept moving!

We soon came across Shanghai Grandmother Restaurant, which we had remembered reading about in a tour book, so it sounded like a good choice for dinner.

This was their version of corn bread.  It sounded really interesting so we ordered it to give it a try.  It was very yummy!

I had this mushroom dish.

Ryan had a fried noodle dish.

And I believe this was a sweet potato dish.  It was definitely vegetable and very yummy.

After dinner we headed back to the Bund to wait for the sun to set and the skyline to light up.

Another shot as the sun was starting to set.

Facing back to the Bund.  One of the old style buildings.  Definitely doesn't look Chinese!

Here I am with the Oriental Pearly Tower in the background.

You can start to see the buildings lit up.

Getting darker outside.

Starting to clearly see what is on the buildings.  They turn into giant TV screens and billboards.

I love Shanghai!

Getting darker in the sky and brighter on the buildings!

Love the view from here.

The buildings on this side are also lit up.

I love this shot because the I love SH is very visible.

While we were over there I zoomed in to see the unfinished building.  You can see that it will be a lot taller than the current tallest building.

Getting darker still...

Loved watching the sky get darker and the buildings get lighter...on both sides of the river.

We didn't have time, but this night time river cruise looked awesome.

That's right, I love Shanghai!  Do you?

After watching the lights come on and the Bund pick up in pedestrian traffic, we headed back to the hotel.  I had to take a nap because I needed to be up at 2 am to defend my research proposal.  Oh the life of a doctoral student!  Thankfully it went well, we went back to bed for a few hours, and then woke up, had breakfast, I taught (undergrad) and then we left for the airport!  It was an insane last 24 hours, but everything went smoothly.

This isn't quiet the end of the vacation since we decided to stay a few more nights in Tokyo when we returned.  Stay tuned for more on that!

QUESTIONS:  When was the last time you visited a science and/or technology museum?  Have you heard of the Bund?  What is your favorite Chinese food?  What is your favorite night time spot with a view?