Sightseeing in Shanghai....

Thursday morning my mom and I decided to walk outside (the exercise room did have A/C- miserable). Well it turned into a 2-hour walk because all we had was our Chinese map, which wasn't super helpful. We did see some interesting things though...

First of all- this is a side note, but I was ASTONISHED. We were on the 18th floor of our hotel and our window opened- that just doesn't seem safe. 

We stumbled upon this park on our walk (around 7:30am). There were TONS (hundreds) of people doing some exercise, I think called Tai Chi. I was trying to discreetly take pictures.

My mom is in the white walking ahead.

Name of the park: Xiangyang Park.

                    Not sure what the following pictures are of, but thought they were pretty:

This is a famous temple in Shanghai.

We did a little sightseeing on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. It wasn't much but here's what we saw....
                                          The Bund: My favorite part about Shanghai ( thursday night )

Thought the top of this building was cool

In the cab...

The European looking side of the Bund.... the lights were amazing

Across the river....The NYC Times Square side...

I believe this is the Pearl TV tower...pretty famous.

Trying to show how crowded it was....

There were all these boats with extravagant lights on the river...

View from where we ate....the WORST restaurant ever. The menu had things such as Fried Duck Tongue, Turtle, Bullfrog, etc. Not really things I was trying to eat.... We ended up eating back at the hotel. We actually called my dad trying to figure out where a few really nice restaurants are, but it's hard to explain street names when they are in Chinese. 

Before we went, I did a little research on what to see. One of the things listed was the Yuyuan Garden. So here are the pictures of the garden and things we encountered looking for it:

Our cab driver (who of course didn't understand English) dropped us off here. It took us about 30 minutes to figure out where to go, finally a nice guy stopped and helped us.

We thought maybe this was the garden...lots of bamboo...

We were wondering where to pay though....

So we ended up back around this market...which was packed and people harassed us to buy stuff. It was also miserably hot. 

Finally found the garden...

Lots of Koi fish swimming...

Inside the garden...

Really cool architecture...

Sign for the garden...

There were really cool rock sculptures everywhere...

Lots of awkward solo shots on this trip...

Really detailed dragon wall...

Counting down the minutes until I can leave and shower...

Columns on wall made out of jade.

Pretty lanterns...

Statue leaving the gardens...

Back in the market....

Famous tea house...

Creepy rides in the market...I thought they were creepy at least.

The park we originally thought was the garden.

On the internet, a review recommended allowing 2 hours for the garden. I was frustrated because we didn't get there until 4:15 (ughhh work) and it closed at 5. However, Carole and I had seen enough of the gardens within 15 minutes. IT WAS SO HOT. Seriously you can't imagine the heat. So we decided, although we would love to go back to Shanghai, we probably will not go to the gardens. They were beautiful but it's a major tourist trap. That was pretty much it for our sightseeing. 

Da Vinci...

So the reason my mom and I went to China and Vietnam is because my mom is helping design a space for Theodore Alexander for Da Vinci (a high-end furniture store in Asia). It carries brands such as Fendi Home, Versace Home, Thomasville, and soon Theodore Alexander. Basically we spent very long days meeting with the architect and designers deciding where walls, archways, doors, windows, etc would go. Then we would pick out fabric and paint colors comparable to what my mom had previously picked out.

Here's the outside of the showroom/store we worked in everyday while in Shanghai:

Here are some inside shots around the store: Please note how elaborate everything is.

Huge purple chandelier.

Hand-painted ceilings everywhere.

Here is some of our work we were doing: (inside Da Vinci)

We also went to see the new space that we would be designing for...please keep in mind that we probably look HORRIBLE because it feels like it's 150 degrees there. IT WAS SO HOT.

These are the people we pretty much worked with...Ryan who is HUGE (6'10 and from Atlanta- lives in Shanghai), Werner in the yellow hat in the back, Chai (sp?) is the architect who is pretty young with the cross-body bag, Owen is the guy in the far back with the red hat, Little Ryan is the guy in the red hat next to my mom, and my mom.

My mom and Ryan discussing something...

My mom who was much happier than I was to be in this extremely hot building wearing a hardhat. 

One of the drawings my mom did for the space.

My mom and Ryan...you can tell how tall he is!

The floor plan my mom made.

My mom and I...awkward angle because Ryan is soooo tall.

Ryan and I. 

Outside of the new showroom we saw this picture: 

My mom posed with the picture. It shows Doris and her husband Tony who are very well-known in Asia. I think they are with their kids in the picture. (I think the daughter is a well-known socialite) Anyway this could be incorrect but I know they are well-known people. Doris also designs jewelry which is BEAUTIFUL.

I learned that the Chinese have different taste than I do. They consider things that are shiny and gold to represent wealth. So a lot of the furniture looked pretty gawdy to me. The furniture was SO expensive. There was a beautiful round table in the entrance of the store that cost $120,000 US dollars. Holy smoke! They are also very into brand names, Fendi pillows cost about $2000 a piece. Apparently people will come in and buy like 12 at once. RIDICULOUS. Here are some of my favorite/most interesting pieces we saw:

Mostly Versace stuff unless otherwise noted...

Fashion Drawings from Versace (not for sale...sad)

I liked this console table a lot.

Versace bed...not really my style but it was shiny like they like.

Thought this couch could be AWESOME in the right spot. Without the pillows.

Loved the chairs...the mirror was interesting in person- very shiny.

Not a comfortable couch.

LOVED this Versace coffee table...made out of Lapis. 

Fendi couch and Fendi pillows...don't even want to guess the price of the couch...

Fendi Chandelier.... they do love their brand names.

Fendi.

Can't remember who this is by, but it was in a magazine recently in the United States. 

Liked this Versace chair as well...They had it in black but sold it. 

Very interesting Versace chair...the people who worked there called it the Lady Gaga chair. Same material as on mirror.

Basically we spent 95% of our time at Da Vinci. At least it was an interesting place to work and everyone was really nice. And most importantly there was air conditioning.