7 July 2015 - Second Day in Shanghai

This morning was very easy.  We had to have luggage out at 8:45 and be in the lobby by 9:15 to take care of any bills paid to the hotel.  I owed for the first night dinner and some phone calls that were made to enable me to have internet access.

The silk factory was a distance from the center of Shanghai. Once we got there the building was not very impressive.  As is usual, we were given a lecture on how silk is made.  We were shown the eggs and then they got larger until they formed the cocoon. They save about a quarter of cocoons to hatch and create the next generation.  The larvae in the cocoon used to be killed by throwing them in boiling water.  Now they use the microwave.  We were shown how the women weave the carpets and were told that the value of the rug increases with the number of knots per square inch.  I wandered around looking at rugs and they had 9 by 12 rugs and they had a few whose primary color was green.  I bought one, which while I like the rug, I bought, I am concerned about the price.  They started at $11,000 and immediately came down to $7,000.  I managed to talk him down to $6,000 although I really don’t know how much it will cost me since I don’t know what the exchange rate will be when the bill hits the credit card company.  Then they took us into the other room where they were selling silk comforters as well as other items.  I bought one item and I am annoyed that I put it on my credit card.  I should have paid cash.

The silk cacoons-starting with the tiny eggs up to cacoons

Spinning - From Cacoon to thread

Weaver working on a rug

Shaping the rug to give it texture

Rug I bought

Looking at rug from other end - note change in color

 Silk Factory

We finally left the silk factory and headed to the airport.  It took about an hour to get there.  We had to hang around till it was time to board.  The city that we were heading to is E-Chung (best guess at spelling).  Apparently the airport was on the other side of the city.  We were driven into the center of the city where we were taken to a restaurant for dinner.  The food was acceptable.  

We arrived at the ship and our cabins were ready.  We just had to be given the cabin numbers.  I immediately headed up to the 5^th floor to use the internet since I don’t have internet access on my machine.  The internet was not very fast, but it worked.  I then headed to my cabin where I did some laundry, showered, worked on blog data and now am going to sleep.