This past week, our youngest daughter, Miranda, visited us in Shanghai during her spring break. Miranda is in her freshman year at Cornell's College of Engineering and seemed to be in need of a relaxing spring break before returning for the last round of tests and classes prior to final exams in May. 
While Miranda has been to Shanghai before, it was in March, 2005, when she was 9-years-old, and she doesn't remember everything. She has some memories, but mostly of Beijing, the Great Wall, and a few images of the time we were in Shanghai. However, she didn't have much time in Shanghai during this visit as spring break is only a week long, so she didn't want to do a crazy amount of sight-seeing.She arrived on Sunday, March 30, and Chris gave her a quick ride on
our e-bike around the neighborhood and past Peter's house, although they were all in Cambodia and Vietnam for their week's vacation. We went to Cantina Agave, a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. On Monday morning, we headed to the local "fake" market for some Lululemon clothing, purses, wallets, shoes, etc. - not only for Miranda but also to take back to the U.S. as gifts for friends. After that, we went to the "Bottle Opener" - Shanghai's World Financial Center - and had a delicious lunch at Din Tai Fung, a nice Chinese restaurant. It was too overcast to go up to the observation deck, so we walked to the Super Brands Mall, wandered around Lujiazui and then headed home. Due to the time difference and her college sleeping schedule, she was waking up early and getting tired pretty early, so we played a lot of cards in the morning and watched some movies in the evening, but not a lot of late-night stuff.
On Tuesday, we headed to Denise, our pearl lady, who is in a new pearl market outside Yu Yuan. We then walked through the Yu Yuan, checking out the Chinese craftsmen and picking up some nice souvenirs for her friends. After a delicious lunch at Fortune Cookie, the American-style Chinese restaurant run by two Cornell Hotel School grads in Shanghai, we headed to the Jing'an Temple. Even though it is being renovated, this is still a lovely temple to visit in the heart of Shanghai. 
Chris had to work on Wednesday and Thursday, so Miranda and I headed out on our own on Wednesday morning to visit The Bund. It was a sunny day, so it was nice to see some of Shanghai. After strolling along the Bund and taking some pictures, wewere off to see the Shanghai Museum. The porcelains and jades were beautiful, as were the Chinese paintings and the furniture. We decided to head back to Pudong and have massages at the Dragonfly in the afternoon. Last but not least, we met Chris for dinner at Bollywood, a local Indian restaurant.
On Thursday, we headed back to the Fake Market for some more Lululemon and more gifts for her friends and sisters. After we stocked up there, we headed to the JinMao tower to have a nice Italian lunch at a restaurant on the 56th floor. The view there is beautiful, so we still didn't bother with the observation deck of the World Financial Center, as we could see a pretty good view of Shanghai from our lunch table. We headed back to JinQiao pretty early on Thursday so we could have dinner at Simply Thai 
Miranda finally slept in on Friday morning, just in time to head back to the U.S. We took a quick e-bike ride over to Peter's house so Miranda could see it, and meet Peter's Ayi, Anny, before she had to head back to the airport to fly home. It was a very short trip, but it was great to have her here. Especially after her last 2 years of high school, when she was the last daughter living at home and Chris was traveling most of the time, I really got used to the two of us spending a lot of time together and I miss her a lot. We are so happy that she's doing well in college, has made a lot of friends, and seems to be really enjoying herself, but we miss her and were happy to have her with us in Shanghai, even if only for a short while.
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