Sampling Shanghai

As I sit at Shanghai Pudong Airport I reflect on my whirlwind visit to Shanghai and understand why so many people love it because there is so much to see and do, there is a great mixture of old (maybe not completely authentic but still out there, maybe with the realisation that looking to your past can actually help your future rather than trying to erase it) and new. I will be back one day as part of a bigger Chinese adventure and I am looking forward to it already. Mikayla and I only had 6 hours to see as much as we could of this city, but not as much as we wanted because the weather was hazy and visibility was not the best so one of our plans to go up the Oriental Pearl Observation Deck went out of the window.but that was okay because we still managed to cover a bit (and I can add it to my to-do list). We left the hotel early to head to Yuyuan (don't be confused with this area and the actual Yu Gardens which are next to each other and labelled as one by Westerners ) and although very touristy it is still beautiful and it was fun to wander around. Don't be afraid to step away from the main touristy area because there are lots of smaller shops around the outside that sell similar things at a slightly cheaper price

We bought breakfast at the tiny little shop on the perimeter of the shopping area, a leek and egg pancake which was delicious and filled the spot before we hit the main tourist trap. Yuyan also houses the Hu Xin Ting Teahouse and artificial lake both of which were constructed in the Ming Dynasty as a pavillion for entertaining and later converted to a teahouse in the Qing Dynasty. This is reached by a zig-zag bridge which was created to deter evil spirits from entering the pavilion. I would love to have tea there but time was against us (as there was a queue and the tea ceremony process is a lengthy one so maybe next time. The City God Temple (Chenghuangmiao)is also here and was built in the Ming Dynasty and although unassuming at the front it has hidden depths and I enjoyed wandering around and just soaking up the atmosphere. The Temple enshrines three town gods: Huo Guang a famous general of Western Han Dynasty (202 BC- 9 AD), Qin Yubo, a celebrity of Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368),The other is Chen Huacheng, sacrificed in the First Opium War (1839 - 1842). The area in front of the temple is used for a variety of things, like folk dancing, acrobatic performances and thankfully not while we were there cock-fighting, but today it was just full of worshippers and tourists so I was okay with that. We had planned on walking through Yu Garden but they had closed off access to the gardens due to construction and as time was running out we didn't want to get lost wandering around trying to find the other entrances so we had to make do with Gucheng Park which is very pretty and a peaceful space in the middle of a huge city and we spent some time watching people dancing and I could have spent longer but time was ticking and we needed to head back to hotel to check out, via the river bank Bund siteseeing walk to take the day shots which although not as impressive were still stunning. We did experience a little celebrity status on our walk, not sure if it was Mikayla's cute hat or my red hair but our photos will be splashed on some randoms Insta account because we had people asking us to be included in their photos so we said sure. I know when I first traveled overseas back in the 1980s the same thing happened but then the red hair in Asia was pretty rare but not so much these days but if that makes someone smile than I am okay with my photo being seen somewhere else. Twenty minutes at the hotel to cool off a little (and be really grateful that we didn't have this weather yesterday at Disney because it would have been unbearable), we quickly freshened up and then we headed out to the airport via Century Avenue (part of Century Park which is the largest in Shanghai just because we wanted to be outside enjoying fresh air even though it was hot and sticky.) The park itself is broken into seven different areas, all themed very differently and would take at least a day on it's own to just have an overview of the park.

One of the showpieces of Century Avenue is the Light of The Orient a sundial made of 6.000 metres of stainless steel which stands at the eastern end of Century Ave and is pretty impressive. We sat and enjoyed the scents and views of the flowers for as long as we could but the heat sent us back to the subway and towards the airport,

We did enjoy a last meal a spicy beef and pickled cabbage noodle dish before getting on the Maglev which also made me think I need to come back just to eat authentic tasty Chinese food, The Maglev journey was even faster than our first one topping at 431kms/hr which excited a Frenchman sitting opposite us who said he'd been on the Maglev many times and it had never got as fast as this. We didn't get long enough to appreciate Shanghai and I will definitely be back to explore because the little taste I had was enough to whet my appetite

#sHanGhaI #cHinA #fOod