Shanghai: June 6: Old Town (inc. Yuyuan Garden)

On Saturday, we got up early to make it to Yuyuan Garden, one of Shanghai's biggest tourist attractions, before the heat and the crowds arrived. Besides Yuyuan Garden, I planned to (and did) see the surrounding bazaar as well as the other sights in Shanghai's Old Town.

I took an enormous number of pictures this day. Di Yin took even more pictures, including many of me. The link to her pictures points to the first picture she took on this day (the day we visited Yuyuan Garden); the following pictures are all pictures from this day. Note: if you're in slideshow mode when viewing the album, you'll cycle from the end of the album back to the beginning and begin to see irrelevant pictures (i.e., a picture of Heathrow airport). You might as well stop the slideshow then.

We took a bus to Old Town, as no metro lines run very close to it, then walked down some back streets to the garden. I had my GPS record my route starting from where the bus dropped us off. It recorded my route until its batteries died at around 4pm. Note: the route is mis-aligned on the map. Please mentally shift the lines to the "actual start" and "actual end." The jumble in the middle of the route should be over Yuyuan Garden.

The garden was pretty--perhaps the most classically beautiful sight I saw in Shanghai (see the pictures)--and pleasantly uncrowded, though it did get crowded by the time we left at 10:50am. Incidentally, this area has the most white tourists I've seen during my trip.

The garden is surrounded by a huge bazaar. When I say huge, I mean it: the commercial areas must spread over 50+ square blocks! We walked through part of it before the garden (it was just setting up), we browsed many parts after the garden (both before and after lunch), and I detoured to walk through it again in the later afternoon. There are many different styles of markets here. We found traditional, dense commercial streets (Olde Fashion Street has high quality stuff); we found warehouse-like spaces that feel like flea markets; we found pretty, tourist-focused shops (these were closest to the garden; in addition to souvenirs, some sold interesting snacks); we found high-end/ritzy-goods malls.

Near the garden, I visited the Temple of the Town Gods. After lunch, as I left the area, I skipped another Buddhist temple (Chenxiangge Nunnery) because I've seen enough of them and it looked like nothing special. I stopped by a non-descript mosque (Peach Garden Mosque), mainly to prove they exist, then headed to a Confucian Temple via Wenmiao Road (which Google Maps labels as "Confucian Temple Road"). Aside from being better paved than the area near our apartment building, Wenmiao has the same neighborhood feel as our neighborhood.

The Shanghai Confucian Temple was quiet and peaceful. I enjoyed getting off the streets for a time, and also liked browsing the sometimes funky teapots in its small Teapot Museum.

I next visited the clearly recently restored Fazangjiang Temple. Wandering around this multi-level temple complex was awkward because of the narrow walkways running along the perimeter of the temple's buildings -- I kept getting in the way of lines of chanting, black-robed monks.

My GPS's batteries died around now. I recorded by hand my rough walking route for the rest of the day. It's correct; it needs no mental shifting of lines.

From these temples and another market, I walked down Shouning Road between South Xizang Road and Renmin Road, passing tons of food booths, zig-zagged through the enormous Yuyuan bazaar, and trekked back to a metro station. I emerged from the metro at the South Shaanxi Road station to meet Di Yin for dinner. Di Yin said this area by the South Shaanxi Road station feels American: modern, decorated buildings, international companies/brands, and less crowded streets. I agree. As for dinner, we went to a Hunanese place, Di Shui Dong, and were very pleased.