I remember waking up with a feeling of last day in Shanghai. It was indeed the last day, not even a full day, we would be heading to the airport at 2 PM. I had wished to stay in the hotel room until check-out time instead of spending more hours galavanting around this megametropolis on foot. Unfortunately, none of my travel companions wanted to stay put. They want to go-go-go like this would be their last trip to Shanghai.
After breakfast, we once again walked in the direction of the Bund and the Suzhou Creek. To be honest, I don’t know why it’s called a creek and not a river. Clearly, it’s wide enough to be a river. Anyway, the sky was once again gloomy and my phone still kept warning me of the imminent doom of rain and thunderstorm, which I had wished the storm had come to get this over with.
We walked past the MGM lion in front of the Bellagio hotel and with no one in sight, I seized my chance.
When my mom saw the Golden Tulip Hotel, she asked me to take a photo of the hotel. She explained that’s a famous hotel and another historic building from China’s past life. I tried to search more information on this hotel as I wrote this post and got nearly nothing other than booking sites.
Anyway, we crossed the Zhapu Bridge and turned onto Suzhou Road. At this point, I was once again dripping in sticky sweat. Not even when I walked under a tree was able to help. “Just a few more days,” I told myself, ready to head back to the desert of northern Utah.
We soon arrived at the former British consulate and the first thing I noticed were the trees and the garden. The moment I entered the garden, the humidity ramped up and I was sweating even more. As much as I loved to linger, Cousin M and Cousin T were hurrying after my mom like groupies as my mom headed toward the exit like she’s allergic to the garden. Every plant in the garden was labeled and I felt like just looking at this garden was lending me inspiration for my own garden even though my climate will never be like this – tropical and humid.
We kept walking and soon encountered more historic buildings. At this point, I felt like like I was walking in circles, not sure what street I was on. I tried to trace my steps on Google Maps as I was writing this post but without accurate data, it’s near impossible to re-trace my steps. All I knew was the Huangpu River soon came back into view and I could recall walking this street on the first night in Shanghai.
We walked all the way to the Wall Street Bull before turning back. Of course, since I was already there, might as well give those horn a little touch to hope for luck on my monetary investments. The walk back was monotous at best since my mom seemed to have this innate ability of making everyone follow her as she took the exact route on our return trip.
The moment we reached the hotel, it started to rain, as if some kind of sign. It’s about time, I thought.
Sitting on the couch in the hotel lobby, my mom said we should wait a bit before heading out but a bit in my mom’s book meant only a few minutes and before I knew, I was back outside the hotel waiting on a taxi, not to take us to the airport but the subway station. Leave it to my mom to be frugal at a time like this.
