Adventurasia Community

Afterwards we went to the Shanghai Silk Factory + Antique carpet museum - they specialize in making silk and wool rugs. We got a tour of how the rugs were created. Some of the patterns are extremely intricate. According to the person at the factory, a rug can take anywhere from 3 or 4 months to 18 months to complete. One of the rugs that we saw has a team of 8 people working on it, and will take about 6 months to complete! This rug will be on display in the museum. Although it may have just been a show for us foreigners, the working conditions seemed to be quite good - the factory was brightly lit, there was airconditioning, filtered water, and the workers got a 10 minute break after every 30 minutes of work.

The price tags are unbelievable - a small 1 foot by 2 foot silk rug may go for a couple thousand US dollars. In the antique section, there was one carpet that was about 1000 (one thousand) years old and was worth 36,000 dollars US!

After lunch we went to the Yuyuan Garden. This garden is located in the northeastern part of the Old Town of Shanghai and is famous for its historical scenery and beautiful landscape. Originally this garden was a private garden in the Ming Dynasty - dating back over 400 years. Near the garden is a shopping area where you can pick up all sorts of knick-knacks - I picked up a name block with a chinese character on it.

To end the day in terms of the tour, we saw the New Shanghai Circus. It was simply incredible! I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. With each act, they really seemed to push the limits of physics. With each movement, the entire crowd ooh’ed and aah’ed.

Some of the acts we saw include:plate spinning; pagoda of bowls; barrel contortion; bench balance; hoop diving - very impressive; nose balance; kicking bowls on the bicycle; lion dancing; aerial ballet; foot juggling; group bicycle; ball skill and pipe balance; magic clock; balance on a single sword blade (unbelievable, gravity defying); teeter board; and the grand finale the ball of death. In this one they had up to 4 motorcycles inside a large metal ball. You really need to see it to believe it. Fortunately, I’ve got quite a bit of footage which I’ll be uploading when I return to Tokyo.