Eating with chopsticks keeps the touts away

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Another day as a tourist in Shanghai.
Shopping malls are all starting to look the same, old streets with quaint washing lines hung overhead and various shops underneath then all look the same and food stalls are all selling candied crab apples and rockmelon crescents and the temples whether Buddhist or Taoists are all starting to look like each other also!

Visited the Yuyuan gardens in the Old Town area, which I think are a little overpriced at 30 Yuan an adult ticket. They are an example of a formal garden design, with each rock and path carefully planned to show nature in this miniature version and how we as people should be alongside of it rather than creating or mastering it.
They were OK to visit, more rocks, and fishponds and pagodas and the usual array of neatly planned edges. There are a series of interesting halls, which you can only peer into, various walkways up and down, a great little shop in the middle selling real artifacts from various provinces and lots of pagodas and the like. It is peaceful, birds were singing, fish were swimming and when you got to the edge of the gardens you could hear real life on the streets, car horns, people etc.
Apparently these gardens were set up in the 1500’s but various wars and regimes have seen it ransacked and then rebuilt. There is one tree left that is 400 years old, with quite a few more than 100 years old around the place. There are many Magnolias which are a favourite tree in Shanghai, with bonsai examples in pots at various locations.
Go there if you do not get the chance to see any other gardens at all, but there are nicer ones around.

I left there and decided to eat, so got some sweet and sour soup with rice noodles from the nearby bazaar area (there was a sign in English to assist me in my purchase) in a takeaway bowl for 10Yuan, quite yummy and then an interesting thing happened. Due to a lack of seats in the general area I was forced to walk and eat with chopsticks and I occasionally sat on a flower display to try to get a peanut into my mouth.

The local touts who haunt this area trying to sell watches etc. left me mostly alone. I think maybe that they thought my God; if this westerner can use chopsticks like this she must not be a tourist. So many asked me if it was delicious, rather than the usual patter of “Hey Lady you want watch, handbag, cheap scarf”. Eating the local food and with a small degree of skill gets you kudos I reckon.

I retraced my steps to the ferry terminal area and to the Esy dragon Cafe for a latte and a figure out on how to get to the nearest Metro to get to Shanghai train station to buy my tickets to Suzhou. The Lonely planet book said take the 930 bus to Renim Square, the staff at the cafe when I asked them said 932, so went to the bus stop and it was 930, God that book has been a good investment. So hopped on and paid 2Y, just guessed that amount may be right, and had a nice little adventure ride to Renim Square. Could have walked, it was probably only 1-2kms, I had figured the right direction, but felt too lazy!

When I arrived at the railway station there were so many more people who seem to be traveling long distance than when I had been there before, loads of bags, luggage, boxes and buckets with people sleeping in corners, sitting on the ground, every alley way has a stale smell of urine. It is close to 0 degrees all day so none of this is comfortable. There was an obvious police and army presence there today.
The English ticket line 43 at the railway station was unoccupied so I went across the road to the other place and English ticket line 10, and got my tickets to Suzhou easily there and back, all up 62Yuan for the D trains which are comfortable and non smoking.
Police were blowing whistles constantly in the booking office if anyone dared to sit on the ground and a very young army guy was constantly moving around the ticket queues tapping people on the shoulder who seemed to have pushed in.
The people before and after me could not get the tickets they wanted even with quite a few alternatives suggested. The government is rationing tickets for this busy Spring Festival holiday time, but people are not deterred and are trying to get home at any rate.

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Photos

Gardens
Intricate and all is planned down to the last detail

Gardens
above door ways and entrances there is always some sort of display like this

Gardens
Looking inside one of the pavilions, you cannot get into any of them

Gardens
Good examples of bonasai and potted plants are everywhere in this garden

Gardens
fish ponds and massive goldfish, another very Chinese feature of a garden

Gardens
A pavilion

Gardens
The place did look nice as it was a sunny day

Gardens
the oldest tree in the gardens, 400 years old, with much of the gardens having to be rebuilt after many wars and revolutions etc

Gardens
Intricate pathways

Gardens
various heights are an important feature in all planned gardens