Old Town and Yuyuan Gardens

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Ok so as neither Dave nor I had teaching practise this morning we made an executive decision not to go in to observe the others or to go to our afternoon Chinese lesson (wisely it turned out - it was more singing) and went in to Shanghai first thing with the intention of seeing the Shanghai Museum and the old town.

It took us a while to get into Shanghai as were we stuck on an overcrowded un-airconditioned bus at morning rush hour. When we did get in though we ate a traditional breakfast of savoury fried breads on Nanjing Lu and watched some women practise a military drum routine. We then wandered down to the old town in the oppressive morning heat. We stopped for tea in a small bamboo tea house in a park and then walked into the old town proper. Old town is a bit of a misnomer though, most of the builings here are twenty years old or less. The originals were most likely pulled down during the cultural revolution and then later replaced with replicas to attract tourists. That said they're attractive buildings.

We visited the Taoist temple to the city god, which is still a functioning place of worship and Huxinting tea house which is one of the few surviving original buildings. We then visited the nearby Yuyuan gardens which were completed in the Ming dynasty in the 16th century. Although the gardens only cover about 5 acres they feel much larger because of all the walls and gateways which split the gardens up. The gardens are dominated by many rockeries, pools and small pagodas some of which host small art galleries.

We ended up spending so long in the old town and Yuyuan that we didn't have time to go to the Shanghai Museum which I'm quite disappointed about. I'll definitely have to come back to Shanghai at some point over the next year.

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Photos

"Old" town
notice the ubiquitous golden M