This was our first full day in Shanghai. After a full 24
hours of travelling we were glad to have a later wake up call. Breakfast at the
Jiu Long Hotel was a mixture of familiar and new foods. There were many foods
that we were all familiar with, like bacon and eggs and toast. There were also
many traditional foods that we obviously were not so familiar with, like
interesting pork buns, soups, salads and noodles. It looked more like a dinner
buffet and less like a breakfast.
Saturday was our first day of sight-seeing. Our first stop
was the Jin Mao Tower, currently the third highest tower in Shanghai. Our visit
started with the elevator ride to the 88th floor. The elevator travels
the length of the building in under 45 seconds at a speed of 9 metres per
second. But it is so smooth that you couldn’t even feel the speed. Once at the
top we had a total bird’s eye view of Shanghai. There were binoculars that you
could look of to get a detailed view of the city and three or four little gift
stations to buy little souvenirs. There
was a window at the centre of the tower where you could look straight down 33
stories to a view of a lounge on the 56th floor. Absolutely amazing!
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| View down the centre of the tower. From the 88th floor to the 56th. |
Our next stop was to an area of Shanghai called the Bund. We
got to walk along the water front of the Huangpu River. Something that we all
found was that many local people wanted to take our picture, or even have their
pictures taken together with us. Particularly
those of us with blonde hair. After some
time wandering the water front to take photos we all gathered together and held
a very informal performance. We drew quite the crowd by singing “Kom!” As we gathered together for our first group
photo of the trip, many other local people also took the opportunity to take our
picture as well. And a number of them
tried to photobomb our little public photo session as well – like sneaking into
the front row. It was actually really
funny. It was an interesting experience.
We then headed to a local restaurant for lunch. It was an
amazing meal, as usual. After lunch we headed to Heluting Concert Hall at the Shanghai
Conservatory of Music for a rehearsal. Outside of the hall was a huge screen
with an older photo of the choir, and inside the music hall our name was
displayed on a large LCD screen in the hall.
We felt a little bit like celebrities.
Rehearsal felt very long and we were extremely restless. We
were still dealing with jetlag. At our break we walked around the corner for a
boxed dinner which was really just classic cafeteria food. We didn’t have a
choice of what was inside. But it was good. It was then time for our first
concert of the tour.
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| Shanghai Music Conservatory. Preparing for rehearsal |
The first half of the concert went very smoothly. At
intermission some little children wanted their pictures taken with the choir,
and brought a banner and stuffed pandas with them as gifts. After we took the
photo they gave the pandas to some of the girls. Mr. Lapatha took one and it is
now our mascot. The second half went just as well as the first half. The
audience was thrilled to find out we were going to do an encore in the first
place, but when they discovered it was “Mo Li Hua,” (a very meaningful piece
for them) they were super excited. They loved it. Some audience members even
sang along! Later that night our courier,
Terry, told us that we should be confident with our Mandarin. At the end of the
concert Dr. Sawatzky, Mr. Lapatha, and Ms. Leanne were given absolutely huge
bouquets of flowers. It was such a pleasant surprise to everyone. Once we made
it back to the hotel everyone was just about ready to pass out. It was
excellent way to end our first day of tour 2015 in Shanghai.
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| Billboard outside the concert hall at the Shanghai Music Conservatory |
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