Shanghai: June 11: Lazy French Concession

Today ended up being a short day with correspondingly few pictures. To make up for this lack, here's a picture from a friend that captures some of the feel of our neighborhood's street scene.

I awoke feeling a little sick, possibly my body reacting to all my bug bites. After breakfast, I commuted to the Police Museum (a.k.a. the Museum of Public Security), which took me some work to find -- I had to walk up and down the same stretch of a polluted 8-lane road multiple times. The museum included artifacts and documents. Although the room descriptions were translated, item labels were not. This made the museum less than educational.

For lunch, I stopped by Vegetarian Lifestyle and had two small, light, pleasing dishes.

I tried and failed to find the fashionable alley Lane 248, but did spot many boutiques anyway (though I'm not sure if that's worth mentioning in the French concession). While on the topic, I want to say: one nice thing (to me) about the heart of the concession is the amount of Roman (English) characters I see. It's somehow comforting.

I stopped by Spin, a ceramics shop specializing in stuff for contemporary/modern/hip/avante-garde/fusion restaurants. Their style is novel: rectilinear or ovoid shapes, some cubist pieces (e.g., cups that look like they shouldn't balance), and even some items that look chipped yet look good.

I'd planned to finish exploring the French concession today, but decided after lunch it'd be better if I rested. I went home and took a nap.

We went to our local dependable restaurant, 1+1, for dinner, and had two good dishes.