Shanghai Day 6

Day 6 was better - we resolved to forget the disappointments of the previous day and set out afresh for Qipu Road and breakfast. It's always well and good to have something to fall back on in a land of foreign food - the ever-trusty Macdonalds and their ubiquitous items on the menu.















Qipu was relatively less crowded at 10am, and we took 4 leisurely hours to stroll through the 2 main malls and select our purchases. I got a pair of "Teva" sandals for 80 RMB, which was a relative steal considering that the other shops were unwilling to let it go for anything less than 100RMB. It's my current favorite.














We went to Ajisen's for lunch and chanced upon a gem of a poster.

























After depositing our purchases at our hotel, we took the metro to the French Concession, where the Lyceum Theatre was sited in order to catch the evening version of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe's performance. It was yet another disappointment, as they had cancelled the performance.


























We then walked along Huaihai Road to check out the Zara sales at the 2 outlets lining the road.

























We ended the trip off with a meal at a mall along the road and some Portuguese fare - if you consider Cafe de Coral to be anything like that.

Shanghai Days 4 & 5

Day 4 was a day of meeting with people - we met with Zhong's Dragonboat teammate and Celest's Jun.














We visited the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum - well, we sort of viewed it from the outside - our main motive was to pay a visit to the various dodgy retailers at the basement of the metro station.














That was where Meng found his first retail love - a pair of Lacoste shoes that he did not end up buying. We spent much of the day haggling about prices with the vendors and did not do very much at all.














Ditto day 5. Which was a horrible day with rain and a fruitless search for the elusive Factory Outlet that had us running all over suburban Shanghai. Wet socks and a truncated Qipu Road best summarizes that forgettable day.

Shanghai Day 3

Day 3
Having not booked a ticket to Hangzhou the night before and waking at 5.30am having slept just 3 hours the night before, the Chinese could have forgiven themselves for having seen wasted zombies scurrying around a) People's Square (人民广场), b) the 80,000 People Stadium and c) the Shanghai Indoor Stadium. All for the sake of catching the bus that left at 7am.

We ran around like idiots looking for a semblance of a bus terminus (or any other congregation of the said motor vehicle, which, unfortunately included most traffic junctions) for the first 2 locations. I have not run so much since BMT before. In any case, we were despairing at the negative replies (and misdirections) given by locals strolling in the calm of the morning. It must have been pretty funny to see touristy Chinese who couldn't speak proper Mandarin running off in the wrong directions.














We got to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium at about 720am, and having thought that the bus had already left, we were a dejected lot. In fact, the lady at the counter told us that the bus would be leaving at 845am, and that there were just 3 seats left. That was our very first stroke of luck on the trip. We promptly paid the 248RMB - which was a ripoff, sadly.

























The Hangzhou tour, and Hangzhou itself was a letdown. We rushed from place to place, and although the highlight of the tour was the Xi Hu (西湖) boatride, we never really got close enough to view the 7 scenic locations up close. Not even enough for photography, barring something like Weisheng's DSLR and his humongous lens. Which wouldn't have worked anyway, given that the boat was rocking about and mist obscured pretty much everything from afar.














My main grouses center about the fact that we spent too little time at the 2 locations of interest - Xi Hu and the Ling Yin Temple (灵隐寺) and too much at the commercial silk factory and the place with the tea leaves. We passed by the Yue Wang Temple (岳王庙) without going in to spit on the statue of Qin Kuai (秦桧) for whom the phrase 遗臭万年was coined. And really fulfill the our inner Chinese self - secretly we admired the Chinese ability to hark up a gob of spit and deposit it on the next available tile.














At the Ling Yin Temple, Meng did not go in with us and I suppose I was the only one marvelling at the splendor of the place given that Zhong was very much the freethinker sort. At least he saw fit to dedicate merits to his mother, who was a devout Buddhist. We had the good karma to witness the recital of the afternoon prayers and toured the hall of the 300 arahants, all of whom were unique and intricately carved. The gold Buddha statue in the 大雄宝殿was a sight to behold, and given that it was rude to take photos inside the confines of the 大殿, I managed to just catch the exterior of the hall itself.

We boarded the bus back to Shanghai next, and I was very much dissatisfied with the events of the day. A filling meal at our destination made up for part of the disappointment though. Meng and Zhong must have eaten 3 full-sized frogs between them.