04 Jul One hot day
What a difference. Glasgow always cols, rainy and gloomy. Shanghai hot 35 degrees and humid like hell;) I am not complaining at all. I love it. I feel like summer holidays. That is why last Saturday I woke up early again ready to explore this fascinating city. My day started with new street food I found – it was a rice ball stuffed with some kind of fried bread, green onion and spices. REally good! Hopefully the subway wasn’t that crowdy as always. I got to the People’s Park, situated exaclty in the city centre. Nice green area surrounded by shopping district and skyscrapers.
First, I had to check the marriage market. This the place in the park where people hang their desperate profiles, that is how I would call it;) People write all the details such as age, height, description and salary off course. Then their parents are taking care of this staff and are looking at all the candidates, writing down details of their future son/ daughter and the deal is done! Pretty easy! It was sunny seeing some mums arguing, discussing with each other in order to get the best husband candidate for their daughter.
So hot that two bottles of cold water don’t help at all. I had to cool down a little bit. …. The right time to visit museums – Urban Planning Museum and Shanghai Museum. The first one was phenomenal, with the plan of the city, movies and the photos showing the changes of this vibrant city over last 100 years. Really cool! Shanghai museum on the other hand was huge with all the exhibits showing the history of china. The most interesting parts were calligraphy, sculptures and culture of around 55 minorities living in China.
After a quick lunch I started walking again. This time it was really A Lot. Even though we have gym in our hotel I see no point in going there, cause I am covering at least 20 kilometers every weekend. Now, my destination was Yu Gardens. On the way there I was stopped by a Chinese couple. They wanted me to take a photo of them. I said fine, but then they started talking crap in English. I could hardly understand them, I just wanted to go bu didn’t want to be rude. Suddenly an American girl came and took my from there. Finally! But I still didn’t know what was going on. she told me about the story that happened to her. That the people asked her to go somewhere with them, try tea and then she ended up paying around 300 RMB.
She joined me and we went to Yu Garden. It is a magical place full of gardens, small cute houses, rivers and rocks. Unbelievable that behind the wall of the gardens there is a crazy market full of everything you can think about: food, watches, bags, clothes, souvenirs, tea shops and the horrible smell of stinking tofu in the air. Just more opportunities for tourists to lose their money. I am already souvenir-prove:) The only thing I buy is new, tasty and weird food!
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