We are now touring with our friends Lev and Galina Leytes. We had a long day today, so I’ll keep to a short description (since I’m very ready for bed!).

We started the tour today at the Urban Development Museum, which had an amazing small scale replica of Shanghai, including building details down to the number of windows. It helped orient us to the city.

From there, we went into old town Shanghai, which was a frantically busy place both with locals as well as tourists. We visited the lovely Yu Garden, which was supposedly an oasis of calm in the busy city, but also was pretty crowded.

After a nice lunch in the old city, we stopped at the state run department store, where Galina and I picked up some silk to bring home.

We also visited a store that made silk. They had a machine running to demonstrate how the silk is made. It showed how they unwove the cocoon and then twisted it into silk thread. They also made silk comforters by stretching the cocoons instead of unthreading them.

We drove through the French concession – the former French section of the city – and then visited the Shanghai Museum. This was a fantastic museum – well laid out, with a good audio tour – but unfortunately we only had an hour there, so we hit a few highlights, and that was it.

For dinner this evening, our group met with a group of entrepreneurs and VCs from China. It was a blast to get to meet some Chinese to talk about how they do business today. I’ll save my comments for later, when I have more time!

-- Donna