Today CZ took me to Sheshan hill in the West of Shanghai.

We saw several pagoda type buildings (I am sorry to say I have forgotten the names) and the large church on the top of the hill (“Our Lady of China Catholic church”).

We also saw inside the observatory, including a replica of a Han dynasty earthquake monitoring device, with dragon heads each holding a steel ball – when an earthquake occurred, a pendulum would swing, knocking a dragon causing its mouth to open and a ball to drop out thereby indicating the direction of the earthquake.

After this we drove past the new underwater museum (Guangfulin Relics Park) and went to look at the university where CZ is teaching.

We had a very nice Chinese lunch!  I particularly liked the “Marinated Meat in Pastry Bun” (which CZ didn’t like!) and the “Cold Millet Cake”, which is a bit like a Chinese version of a doughnut, using rice instead of dough.

After lunch we went to the Shanghai Film Park – a place full of reconstructions of parts of old Shanghai (mainly 1920’s and 30’s) – used for filming various movies.  The way CZ described them they all sound rather formulaic and predictable, though I expect they are not really.  They were filming in one of the roads, and at one point we got told to get out of shot!

We went on a tram ride around the park.

In the evening we had a meal with CZ’s daughter and parents in an historic old Shanghai Western restaurant – Shanghai Deda Western restaurant (德大西菜社) which has existed since 1897.  The steak was extremely tasty.

---