The China 2009 Total Solar Eclipse
Omega Holidays, Wuzhen China.
Omega Holidays, Wuzhen China.
Webmaster © Paul L Money/Astrospace 2009
Shanghai and heading for home
After a couple of hours Minibus ride we arrived and booked into the Shanghai Pullman Skyway Hotel - phew - it’s huge with 52 floors! Unfortunately it rained most of the time we were in Shanghai so plans for going in town to look around were scuppered although our little group did have a short walk round the area. I ended up on the 32nd floor whilst Jayne found herself on the 17th. The ZAFFRAAN restaurant was on the 49th and gave spectacular views of Shanghai’s cityscape. That’s if you don’t like heights! Unfortunately I do fall into that category as Jayne found to her amusement! We went up to take a look at the view and Jayne naturally just went straight up to the full height windows and pressed against them admiring the view. On turning round she realised that I was slowly edging towards the windows firmly grasping the side and just a little white faced. Sorry - I can fly at 40,000 ft and happily look out the window basically glass side to a room at 49 floors up is a different ball game!
After our exploration outside and a few hours rest we all met up in Zaffraan restaurant and had a meal. Unfortunately I ate something that didn’t go down too well so did not have a particularly good night but I did manage to photograph the night skyline from my room - which also had full height glass windows - err yes - nuff said!
After breakfast we got checked out of our rooms and the minibus took us with a little delay back to Pudong Airport where Jayne and I managed to meet up with Pete Lawrence. We were pleased to find we had not been bumped off the flight back home. 12 hours later we arrived back at Heathrow T5 somewhat shattered but glad to be almost home.
The trip was quite an experience but the initial hassle with losing about a day or so meant that we didn’t get to really explore Wuzhen as much as we’d have liked but this was no fault of Omega Holidays. I’m grateful that they included me in their plans and to have such good travelling companions as Pete and Jayne as well as meeting the people who ended making up our little group that stuck together for the trip, Mark, George, Chris and Vincent . We saw the important part of the eclipse, namely Totality and did get to visit China and can recommend Wuzhen to anyone visiting China.
Thanks go to Omega Holidays, Peter Truman, and Rob England of Omega Holidays, Bill and Jessica at Wuzhen and Mr Lee our guide in the minibus for helping make this trip work despite the travel delays. Thanks also to Jayne for quite a few of her images and to Chris Brankin for the restaurant image.