Shanghai - day 2

Shanghai isn’t as pretty at Hong Kong but just as busy. The city has the same mix of chinese culture meets western society. Compared to Europe it’s very tourist friendly. All the signs are written in both English and Chinese and the people are helpful. One particular type of friendly chinese person is the one who comes up to you and asks “watch?, bag?, shoes?, DVD?, iphone?” Westerners stick out in the crowd and so we’re easy targets for this type of sales pitch. On the main streets you get stopped every minute by these people. The other people who stop you are the beggars who shake their cup in front of you and follow you down the street. In Shanghai we’ve seen a number of women with their children begging. With one day left to try and explore Shanghai we couldn’t really do it justice. We have a Lonely Planet guide with itinerary suggestions and we used that as a rough guide. First we made for a place called Yuan Yuan Gardens which is in the “Old Town” part of Shanghai. These gardens were built in the 1500’s and are comprised of multiple chinese pavilions set amongst meandering pathways and streams. The gardens themselves are immaculately planted. Jade stone was used to form the rockeries and it has a very rugged striking appearance in its natural form. The streams were teaming with carp. Next door to Yuan Yuan Gardens was Yuan Bizarre, a collection of craft shops selling tea sets, chinese fans, artwork, and antiques. We enjoyed looking around here and Mark saw a very nice teacup which he may go back and buy. For lunch we made our way to a part of town called the French Concession. This was Shanghai’s trendy area with large wide footpaths, trees lining the streets and all the designer stores. We stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant which looked popular and had a very nice meal. The waiting staff have been fantastic in comparison to Europe. There is always someone hovering nearby to look after you. We continued on to Xiantindi – a collection of shops in the French Concession which we looked around. ON our way we found the Shanghai Museum Shop and Mark has bought some nice cufflinks. We returned to the hotel mid-afternoon with jet lag setting in and had a quick snooze. In the evening we went back to the Bund to look at the skyscrapers lit up a night. We’re off to bed and pleased at the thought that tomorrow we will begin our journey home