Shanghai

I did not miss you when I was gone, but now that I am here, I sure am glad to see you again!

The weather is quite nice now, it is not hot any more, but still warm enough to go out and around with short sleeves and skirt / shorts. Although it seems that every time we go out and I am wearing a skirt we end up climbing over some fences :o)

Yesterday we decided to visit Shanghai museum, which is supposed to be the best in China, and has exhibitions of the chinese culture and history. It all seemed good when we saw the building and headed to the door. Except it was not the entrance, but the exit. The entrance was on the other side of the building and boasted a queue of maybe 500 meters. Well, we should have known beforehand that Sunday afternoon just might be slightly crowded. So we'll try some other time, and in the morning rather than about 1 pm.

The best way to get to know the city is by walking, and after checking out the museum from outside, we walked to some areas where we had not been to before. Sometimes, if just taking a taxi, or even worse, metro, you get totally wrong idea of the distances between different places, and miss all the places you are not trying to find.

We walked maybe half an hour without seeing any other westerners, without anyone disturbing us. All of the sudden couple of chinese started hawking around us, and as usual, clothes, watches, bags, shoes were all available with great prices. It struck us a bit odd, in the middle of nowhere, how could it be woth for them to wait there for some random "tourists". (They even "warned" us from going forward, there are lot of thiefs, according to the yong man). When we got around the corner, we understood why the hawkers had been there, as we ended up to one of the biggest markets in Shanghai. Probably almost anything anyone might come to need or want, was offered. We seemed to be the only westerners on sight, so there was no shortage of company, trust me.

We got out without buying anything, and headed back to the modern parts of the city for some rather over-priced "prime cut" rib lunch. But it was a good comeback to the city: something old, something new. That's Shanghai for you.