Monday July 11th
When I woke up this morning I Skyped my Dad to talk to him before his knee operation on the 13th . Then I took the subway to the Shanghai Museum. However, it was difficult to find. First I found the Shanghai Art Museum, which was closed for renovations, then the Urban Planning Museum, which was closed on Mondays. I finally found someone who pointed me in the right direction. This museum was built in 1996 and houses thousands of historically significant artifacts from Chinese history. There were areas set aside for pottery, bronze age statues, bowls and other items, a roomful of Chinese art drawing, calligraphy, minority group clothing and traditions, and Ming dynasty furniture. It was beautifully laid out and very interesting.
Then I walked across the square to the People's Park. I walked though the park which also houses a small amusement area for children, complete with rides. Then I sat for awhile by a pond full of lotus flowers and watched the local people.
I walked further and stumbled across a little park that had a sign commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. There were a group of Chinese people posing in front of it and others taking photos, so I took a photo of the group too. They saw me and wanted to see the photo. We couldn't talk to each other but we smiled a lot and the next thing I knew one guy sat me down with five Chinese women and took our photo. So I gave him my camera to take another one. We all had a good laugh.
A couple of young students came up to me, asked me to take their photo and then asked me where I was from and we struck up a conversation. After a few minutes they said they were going to a traditional tea ceremony and asked if I wanted to join them. Normally with my FOMO I might have gone, but we had been warned by Allen, Intrepid and Lonely Planet, that this is a scam where you go for tea and then they charge you an exorbitant fee. So, I declined, walked away and shortly after another couple came up and started the same shtick. Glad we were warned.
So, when I walked away and again set out to find the French Concession area and another Chinese guy came up and asked me where I was from I was very wary. He told me he was a student from another town who was in Shanghai for a month with his dad. His name was Cao Wang. So, I talked to him and told him where I was going. He said he'd never been there before and wanted to go too. I kept waiting for him to ask me to go to tea, but he was just a nice guy who wanted to speak English and help me find the French Concession First he pointed out a building that was where the first meetings of the Communists were held in 1921. The building is called the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China. There were thirteen members and Mao Ze Dung was one of them. So, we went in and toured the building which is now a museum. The meetings were held here for nine days until the French Concession searched for the subversive Communists and the last meeting had to be held on a pleasure boat on a lake in another area. Then we walked further to another building called the Memorial House of the Shanghai Office of the Delegation of the Communist Party of China, where a lot of the original Communists lived in the early days.
Then Cao and I continued our search for the French Concession area. He asked several people and they all told us different directions. No one seemed to know exactly where it was. I noticed an American looking woman and asked her. She turned out to be from California and had lived in Shanghai for a few years. She told me where it was, but said that in her opinion there was a better area to go to. She told us the street, Takang, and helped us find it on the map and away we went. It was about a twenty minute walk. Turned out to be a really nice bohemian type area full of shops, boutiques and eateries on winding, narrow streets (as it turns out this was the area that everyone else had told me about). We walked around for awhile exploring before Cao had to go home for dinner. He was good company. I walked around for awhile more and met an Irish guy who was having a beer at a bar and sitting with his Chinese girlfriend. He told me he had moved to Shanghai for work and loved it there. We chatted for a bit and then I headed back to the hotel to met up with Paul.
Paul, Penny and I went back to Waggas for dinner and I met another Canadian guy there who wanted to start up his own travel company like GAP, going through China. Paul and Penny wanted to go to the French Concession area, and as I'd just come from there, I opted for going back to the Bund area to get some photos of the night skyline. After that I found a little bar called the Captains Bar, that Maggie had recommended. It was on the sixth floor of a hostel and had a great outside view of the skyline. I sat up there by myself and had a beer before heading back to the hotel for the night. It was a very good day, and I've decided I quite like what I have seen of Shanghai, clean, well laid out and friendly.
I am glad that your FOMO radar kicked in
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