Shanghai China - Days 2 and 3

Day 2-

We had free breakfast at our hotel, nothing special. I really like breakfast food for breakfast, and so about a third of the buffet was off the table for me, and another third was off for the meat. But, the fruit was good, and they had mangoes so it wasn’t a waste. We went back up stairs for a quick nap before heading the streets to look for a new hotel. Anna and her fiancé had booked this hotel from Taiwan through the weekend because we wanted to be sure it wasn’t a dump before committing for our whole stay in Shanghai. When they tried to add nights, the price went up, and so we decided to go elsewhere. Anna suggested we wait outside while Lei Ti went in to negotiate price (since seeing two Americans were going to be in the room would have definitely upped the price), it worked and we had secured our next few nights in Shanghai. It was just about a block from an MRT and just as decent a place as any. The best part was that the room had a fake window. It was a stained glass window with a light fixture behind it that when lit up made it seem plausible to think it was sunlight coming through the glass.

We made our way to the People’s Park in search of the art museum. We found the old mansion that used to overlook the race track. Now it has ivy climbing up the side and the inside reminded me of a library. Some of the most notable pieces came from an “artists of the year” exhibit. There were portraits that had been photoshoped to alter one feature that to me through the who photo off in a disturbing way, like a toddler with adult teeth. There was an iron box sculpture which may not have been a sculpture at all but a packing box, and, my favorite, a photo series of trees in different seasons and a photo looking through a window and onto a rural scene.

We walked through People’s Park in search of the Contemporary Art Museum only to discocver it was closed for the installation of its next exhibit. On our way through the park in search of the museum, we stopped at a huge lilly pond for some photos. Peoples Park is built on the old horse race track, but now feels more like a jungle with the amount of fauna and loud bugs combining with the humid summer air. The crickets were super loud.

The Shanghai Museum is also in People’s Park, and is home to hundreds of thousand-year-old pieces. At some points, it felt like a centuries-old Crate and Barrel, if crate and barrel had soul. There was beautiful pottery from thousands of years ago, ceramics that retain color and designs, ancient Chinese paintings, furniture made with pieces that simply fit together without using nails and calligraphy writings (which is kind of like looking at handwriting, but since Chinese has something like 50,000 characters it’s a bit more impressive). We didn’t have time to go through everything before it closed for the night, and made plans to return.

For dinner we walked through French Concession to find a hunan place Anna scouted in a travel book in the museum gift shop. It was here that we had probably the best dessert I’ve had since chocolate volcano cake. The chef cut up bananas, breaded them slightly, fried them and then topped them with sticky toffee. The waitress dipped her chop sticks in water to unstick them for us. They were crunchy and sweet on the outside, and once you bit in there was a fresh, slightly mushy, banana. It was simply amazing.

Best. Dessert. In. China.

After stuffing our faces, we walked a bit through French concession but called it an early night, and like the Shanghai museum, said we’d try again another day to explore more of the area. When we got back to the hotel, we checked to see if my luggage arrived. Yes, while I made it to China, my luggage was not there waiting for me. It made customs easier I guess, but I was running out of clothes quick and hadn’t worn makeup in a couple of days so I crossed my fingers that the next day would be the day. We watched an awesome Chinese dating show and part of a movie with English subtitles that was hard to follow even with the English.

Day 3 -
We decided to follow a guide book walking tour of old town. The first stop was the shopping district. The shops were nice, but they were too expensive and didn’t really seem that Chinese. They did make for a good path to the building where the first communist congress took place. They are celebrating 90 years of communism in China this year. It's odd to see the iron sickle in so many places, especially adjacent to shopping centers like the one we had just walked through.

Later on in the walk we found ourselves in a flea market of sorts. It seems like in order to make things look like antiques the shops just let everything get dirty. None of the things can actually be antique since it's illegal to take anything old out of China. Fans, clock necklaces, happy buddas, old posters, bronze chotchkies, "jade" animals repeated every few shops. I was happy with my necklace and fan purchases. The fan was bought at the second fan shop we stopped at after the first shop was over-the-top aggressive salesperson. Even though she went down in price quite a bit, she lost my sale the second she grabbed my wrist to try to keep me from walking away. That was not ok. But the next fan lady was much nicer, and gave us a decent price considering the heat.

From the flea market we went to a flower and bird market, more of a pet store/pet supply market. I would have thought Mexico would have prepared me for this with the little turtles for sale and the sad pet stores, but I was still a little disturbed by the mounds of meal worms and all the animals in such small spaces. The first animal I saw was a squirrel that looked dead, feet in the air and everything, but we eventually saw him move. And they had crickets in cages too, sold to be fighters. I couldn’t help but think of Jiminy Cricket. Even though up close they have barely any of the anthropomorphic characteristics Disney drew, I still felt bad.

A longer ways away was the Yu Garden, which is through the largest tourist bazaar in Shanghai. The Gardens were once private. It zig zags leaving lots of ways to explore, or get lost. The "fake mountains" and dragon wall, along with the koi pond and temples create a space anyone would want as their backyard. Well, minus the koi for me considering how creepy they are. They always look like they're going to grow legs and climb out so we all can see evolution in action. No thank you!

Creepy Koi!

After the garden closed for the night we walked around the bazaar a little, finding food at the food court. I had asparagus and green beans. Anna and Lei Ti filled their trays with fried rice, crabs, a egg/seafood dish, and a lotus root dessert. I tried the lotus root, but as is most sweet food here it's just a little more sweet than the supposedly savory dishes, and the texture is slightly off. I usually like my hot foods really hot and my cold food really cold, so luke warm is already something I have to get over, and texture too, it is often too much. I'd like to think that if I was here long enough I could get used to it, but I'm not 100% sure.

This dragon turtle was outside the cafeteria.

After dinner we stumbled upon the last few minutes of a dance performance and then treated ourselves to Dairy Queen and a trip to the Chinese Medicine shop for a look around. I'm not sure what dried sea horses are supposed to do, or lizard skins, but they had them.

The MRT took us home again for beers and TV. This tome the girls were choosing from a group of men on the dating show, a refreshing change in the game.