Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A China Holiday: Day Four: Shanghai Walk

I'd so looked forward to this day, a day to walk around the French Concession and the Bund, the formerly European areas of the city. Alas, the view out our window revealed a very wet day in the making (that IS a huge statue of Mao sticking up above trees at lower right). The rain was part of Super Typhoon Megi, which did much damage further south and in Taiwai--no winds, but plenty of WET in Shangai.
We started out at the site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Interesting...lots of rare artifacts and photographs. Lots of appropriate propaganda...

I was very sternly told "No!" after I took this photo...oops!
This area, the French Concession, still looks quite European. Very pretty, even in the rain.
A hot cup of coffee was just the ticket--and it came from our very own California coffee purveyor, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
We then set off walking...here's a few things we saw along the way.



This was our destination, the Dongtai Road Antique Market.
The word "antique" is loosely used in China, by the way...and at this market lots of other obviously non-antique goods were mixed in. It continued to rain, picking up intensity...





We were utterly soaked through and through. I stepped in a big puddle that went up over my ankle. Ugh.
Hot dumplings for lunch improved our spirits momentarily.
But the rain was relentless (also: it was once again crowded, despite the downpour).
We gave up, went back to the hotel, had an egg tart (OMG yum, remember my rhapsodizing about these on my trip to Hong Kong?) and a cup of tea and proceeded to take turns using the hairdryer to dry our shoes. A fun, if damp, day.

1 comment:

JuJu said...

Oh, I am loving our Shanghai adventure.

That dumpling looks amazing!

repirs

My car is in serious need of repirs.