Our day started with a quick ride on the subway and a short walk to the Yu Garden. This peaceful, beautiful classical Chinese garden was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Walking through it was like navigating a maze.
Next to the Yu Garden was an equally impressive outdoor mall called the Yuyuan Bazaar. It was filled with artisanal stores. We had avoided purchasing souvenirs from market sellers because of the necessity for haggling so we were fairly eager to make some purchases at genuine stores. We made some purchases at an authentic hand painted fan store.
A 15 minute walk through crowded alleyways and streets took us to the Huangpu River. We purchased ferry tickets for just 2 CNY each (that’s just 30 cents USD!) The ferry took all of 10 minutes to take us from one side to the other.
Once we arrived we walked over to Shanghai Tower and went up to the observation deck. Some fun facts: Shanghai Tower is the second tallest building in the world, and the observation deck is the highest observation deck in the work.
We were getting super overheated and tired at this point but we needed to make one more stop before taking a break.
The great Anthony Bourdain led us to a hole-in-the-wall dumpling restaurant called Lin Long Fang. They are famous for their soup filled dumplings. To avoid burning your mouth with lava hot soup, you dip your dumpling into a little plate of vinegar for a minute before eating it. For the most part it was really delicious, all except for a mysteriously named “assorted meat” filling, which was gray in colour and probably a nice pâtè of grizzly bits.
After a rest at the Airbnb and a failed attempt to find a famous bookstore we went back to the river for a one hour evening cruise. The Shanghai skyline is breathtaking at night with the fantastic light display. I’ve been to many cities and hands down Shanghai wins. We couldn’t take enough photos and videos.
To cap a very long day we took a taxi to a Korean restaurant. We thought that since we were geographically close to Korea that we would have a really amazing, authentic Korean BBQ dinner. Alas, I chose poorly. The food was great, but it turned out to be less authentic than even the Korean BBQ we have in Kansas City. The tteokbokki had a strange Chinese sauce instead of the usual gochujang (red pepper paste). It was good, just different. Nobody at the restaurant could speak Korean, which was a big disappointment to Addam.
