Shanghai

When we got in, it was late afternoon so we checked into the hostel before checking out the area. We wandered over to east Nanjing road which is a big shopping road in the area (we like to see those types of places, like markets and such, the bustle and local culture are fun to experience). So we wandered up and down the road and grabbed some noodles for a snack before heading to the Bund along the western bank of the Huangpu River. The Bund became important in the early 1900's as a financial and trading center for countries from all over the world who wanted a piece of the action in the tea and opium trade at the time.

The second day, we headed to Megabyte for brunch (found out about it from Lonely Planet) where we put a bit of money onto a swipe card and tried lots of little bits of food from a buffet of different restaurants. Next we headed to the Shanghai museum which I loved. The section about the development of standardized currency was really interesting. Apparently out of the bartering system evolved a custom of trading your goods for axe-heads (made of solid metal of varying types) which you could then trade to others since (depending on the weight and type of metal) the metal they were constructed from had a fairly consistent value to all people. Later, the axe-heads were replaced by flat metals tokens which still maintained the basic 2D shape of an axe head, then eventually by flat tokens in a circle shape like the coins we have today. We also saw "pillows" made of bronze and porcelain, pottery over six thousand years old, and intricately designed bronze pots for wine and food.


Our third day in Shanghai was packed, hectic, but alot of fun. Our first stop was the old section of Shanghai where we revelled in the gorgeous architecture and imagined what life would have been like there 100 years ago. The we grabbed brunch at a highly recommended (by Lonely Planet) dumpling take-away restaurant (they were unusually delicious, I think they steam them with broth of some kind) before heading to Yuyuan Gardens. We had a long, lovely, and meandering walk through the gardens (think: Labrynth) taking in the calming feng shui nature of it's design.










Our next stop was Dongtai road antique market where dozens of vendors sell "authentic" Chinese antiques (by this point in the day, it was gray and cool and a heavy mist was falling). We admired the antiques, bought some and scoffed at prices of others before taking a taxi to Xintiandi, which is the hip, newly re-developed section of the French Concession. At this point, Matt and I split up because I wanted to keep walking in the rain, and you know he's the sensible one.....


Anyway, I had a lovely stroll around the area (got lost) before hopping on the subway and heading back to the hostel in time for Matt and I to get to the Theatre Centre to see the acrobats. The performance was INCREDIBLE. There was a lady balancing multiple candles on her chin while moving around, a man and woman swinging theatrically while doing acrobatics dangling from a ribbon attached to the ceiling, a dozen people balanced on an incredibly tall and precarious stack of chairs, amazing jugglers, people being catapulted high into the air only to land perfectly on some sort of unstable target, and extraordinarily flexible people. But that description can't explain the difficulty level of stunts that this group was performing. Maybe my brief video clip of the Shanghai Acrobatics Troupe will give you an idea. Following the show, we had several fun hours hanging out with Matt's friend (from college), Howie, who happened to be visiting the city at the same time as us.

We had read in our guidebook about the incredible restaurants in Shanghai that have been influenced by cuisine from all over the world. Keep in mind that by this point in our journey, for two pseudo-foodies, we've been eating strange food, street food, food that after you've tried it you don't like it at all, food that we just point at to order because we don't know what it is, etc. So we factored into our budget a legitimately nice restaurant where we had brunch. It was spectacular. First of all, it was nice to be fancy and treated luxuriously, and second of all, the food was amazing... turkey stuffed with asian fruits, salad (!), and a dessert called a pavlova which I adored.

On our walk back to the hostel, we stepped inside the HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) building. It was built in the early 1900's and the mosaic ceiling in the lobby is well known to be a work of art (no pictures please). The Zodiac signs were displayed in the center surrounded by views of cities all over the world. It was beautiful.

Following brunch, we had some downtime because we ate MUCH more than we should have. We spent the rest of the afternon relaxing, planning our Hong Kong itinerary, checking emails, and working on other miscellaneous chores before it was time to eat again. Our friend, Ann Copeland, had given us contact information for a friend of hers who lives in Shanghai so we met up with Sharon and her family that evening. We had a real Shanghainese dinner (which included peacock and rabbit) and it was fabulous to be a part of a family event after being away from home for so long. It turns out that it was actually the family Christmas dinner (Iris, 8, had written a letter to Santa asking him to come early since they were going to be away from home during Christmas) and Matt and I felt incredily lucky to be able to celebrate the holiday with such lovely people.

The pictures in this post are: East Najing Lu, the Bund at night, a bronze wine vessel made between 1100 and 1300 BC, "Old Town," and a beautiful nook in Yuyuan Gardens.