THIS PORTION OF THE TRIP REPORT IS DEDICATED TO Y.A.
The next morning we met up with an Israeli woman living in Shanghai to baby sit our daughter and then we proceeded to the fascinating Jewish history tour with Dvir Bar-Gal (
http://www.shanghai-jews.com/index.htm). He basically gives you a thorough history of the Jews there, from the time the Sefardim came, and through the time of WWII when over 20,000 Jews were saved due to the open port policy (i.e. no visa necessary). You also visit the areas that the Jewish refugees lived, where you can still see some magen davids and the places where the mezuzahs were once affixed. You also visit an old shul which also houses the Jewish Refugees Museum. He also takes you inside a "house" which used to be inhabited by a Jewish refugee family, which they then sold to a Chinese guy after the war, to see how small and cramped the living conditions were. (It happened to be this Chinese guy's worst real estate deal, as just a few years later, the government confiscated all property.) I just want to point out that there is a ton of dialogue on this tour, but I personally enjoyed it very much. It's also quite expensive at 400 RMB ($58) per person but he does give a student discount. After the tour, I walked over to the site of where the Beis Aharon shul once stood, which was where the Mir yeshiva set up its temporary beis medrash. Unfortunately, it's nothing more than a construction site today. After that, we went to the Yuyuan Gardens but we didn’t really find the garden part only all the tourist shops. Next we went to Xintiandi which is basically a hip area with cafes etc. They also have a Coffee Bean there, but not sure if kosher. BTW, we went to all these areas by taxi which is dirt cheap. I think our most expensive taxi ride on the meter was no more than $5. After that, we strolled along the Bund area which is basically a bunch of buildings with 1920's architecture along the waterfront, that was the hub of business life when Shanghai was an open city. At night the buildings are lit up which is beautiful. Unfortunately, the boardwalk was closed due to construction for the then upcoming World Expo. We then returned to the hotel where we hit up the highest bar in the world for a beer and the view which being around 10 floors higher than our room, was better. After that we took a dip in the highest pool in the world after a long day, and called it a night.
P.S. Where's Waldo? I appear in one of the pictures below, can you spot me?
