solar eclipse
2009
eclipse on shanghai - 5 days
 Tour Information
Starts/ ends: Shanghai
Departs: Sunday 19th July 2009
Prices and Departure info: Click here
Breakfast: Daily, Lunch: 1, Dinner: 0
Hotel rating: 3 - 4 
Local Payment Required: No
Guide: Yes, during included sightseeing
ECLIPSE: 22nd July, totality 09:36 am
Day 1: Shanghai
Welcome to China, futuristic Shanghai and the start of your city break! Airport arrival and transfer to our hotel. Overnight - Shanghai
Day 2 - The best of old & new Shanghai!
Shanghai - Breakfast. Just the mere mention of ‘Shanghai’ conjures up mystery, romance and general decadence. Pre – 1949, cosmopolitan Shanghai was a magnet for seekers of wealth, idle colonialists, explorers and the dispossessed. The city’s oddities were due to the unusual circumstances of the city’s existence. Written into the Treaty of Nanjing was the notion of extraterritoriality , which translated as foreign nationals not being bound by Chinese law, but rather by the laws of their own consuls. Basically anything went. Until 1949, foreigners dominated commerce, banking and industry, amassing huge fortunes and transforming the landscape of foreign concessionary sections of Shanghai. Everything went belly up in 1949, when Mao and the communists took to power and swept the good times and rock and roll away rather swiftly. A legacy of these heady times, is Shanghai’s Bund where on and around this waterfront promenade are a vast series of grandiose pre-1949 buildings. After four decades of austerity, economic reforms implemented by Deng Xiaoping reawakened Shanghai. Just across the Huangpu River is the new Shanghai, a high-tech development of sky scrapers, the centre piece of which is the rocket-shaped Oriental Pearl TV tower. Mercedes and BMW cars cruise the neon-lit streets, modern department stores rub shoulders with cool bars and Shanghai is staking it’s claim to being China’s foremost metropolis.
Our sightseeing of Shanghai takes in the Oriental Pearl TV tower and viewing platform which offers magnificent 360 degree views of the entire city, the Jade Buddha Temple, charming Yuyuan Gardens and the Bund and Old City. This evening, enjoy a cruise on the Huangpu River. Overnight - Shanghai
Day 3 - Suzhou water canals
Shanghai - Suzhou - Shanghai - breakfast. Suzhou, a 2,500 year-old cultural city is located in an area of rivers that crisscross the Yangtze River Delta of southeastern China. In the city, boats bob along waterways interwoven with small bridges that run parallel to the streets and traditional houses built along them. Coupled with a stunning collection of UNESCO-listed gardens and famed for it’s silk, Suzhou is an oriental treasure. Taking a high speed train to Suzhou, we enjoy a cruise on the Grand Canal, tour the Humble Administrator’s Garden and visit a silk workshop. Lunch and overnight - Shanghai.
Day 4 - ECLIPSE on Shanghai
Shanghai - breakfast TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE 2009. Early this morning we drive south east (for approx 75km) following the Shanghai coastline. Arriving at our eclipse location, City Beach in Jinshan - a broad flat beach with clear visuals across the East China Sea and above. Shanghai's coastline is the most favourable land based location within the eclipse path and additionally offers one of the greatest time spans for overhead visual.
Eclipse site co-ordinates
31° 42′ 28.62″ N, 121° 20′ 32.60″ E
Poised and ready to witness the total Solar Eclipse, the moon will first touch the sun at 08.23, with totality beginning at 09.36. As the event unfolds the sky will change to a deep purple as the horizon falls into shades of orange and red. Then at the precise moment of totality the sun will blacken over and the sky will fall into darkness. The brilliance of totality will last for 5 minutes.
08.23am - Moon first touches the sun - start of the eclipse
09.36am - Start of totality. 09.41am - End of totality. Duration 05.00mins
11.01am - Moon is no longer visible on the sun - end of the eclipse
After the grand finale we return to Shanghai, remainder of the day at leisure. Perhaps head to Nanjing Road, just off the Bund or Huaihai Lu; the main street of the French Concession for amazing shopping, explore the Old City or drop into the historic Peace Hotel for a drink and a spot of jazz. Overnight - Shanghai
Day 5: Shanghai - breakfast
Thursday 23rd July. Breakfast. Our tour concludes after breakfast and onward departure transfer to airport.
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