A milestone birthday gift to myself. Trip to Shanghai. Met my sister there. It’s the first time we’ve actually travelled together as adults. We got along surprisingly well!
As expected of traffic in China, these e-scooters were everywhere.
Traffic in Shanghai was dreadful. It was much easier to ride the subway, even though the trains were also very crowded during peak hours, but they were at least cheap, reliable and on-time. I used the A-maps app, which was incredibly helpful in navigation as it was extremely detailed, and is available in both English and Chinese.
These silent scooters whizz about everywhere, on roads and on pavements alike. They don’t seem to follow any discernable road rules at all. Many a time, I saw irate policemen berating the riders for breaking rules, especially the delivery drivers.
Overloaded but I can balance!
I was out till late most nights. After 9pm, all the shop maintenance people are out. I saw a whole platoon of these hardworking folks, bearing massive burdens on their bikes, clearly on important errands.
There’s something very homey and reassuring about seeing laundry outside a home.
Around the streets of the French Concession, many of the fences were made of these beautifully woven bamboo canes. They’ve all weathered into lovely hues of golds and browns. I think many of them are concealing ugly spiky metal fences behind. This is much more aesthetically pleasing.
This lovely mansion used to belong to Hu Xueyan, one of Hangzhou’s richest businessmen 2 centuries ago. Sadly he went bankrupt and his residence had to be sold. But it was an unexpected gem of a place to visit. Not too crowded and I was able to get some lovely moody pictures as it was raining quite heavily. There was a small group of art students from Shanghai practising their drawing….I was almost too embarrassed to pull my own sketchbook out. There was also a couple having their wedding pictures taken.
My sister and I adore museums, so of course we had to visit the Shanghai museum. We went to the Eastern branch, as I heard that the main branch at People’s Square housed more of the temporary exhibits.
Every big city has to have its fair share of European looking important buildings. This one calls itself a “Friendship Convention Hall”. It’s located right opposite the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where we were staying for a while.
This doorman chose well. He really stood out.
My sister insisted on visiting this fancy coffee place, which she was told was “life-changing”. I am not a coffee drinker, so I had to be educated! True to expectation, I did not like the Americano, but liked the milk beverage and cold brew versions.
I liked the look of this curved building along Nanjing West road. The ground level is entirely taken up by high end watch stores. I wonder who buys these time pieces. How on earth do all these high end malls stay afloat? Many of the malls are scarily silent.
The morning of my departure, I decided to venture to the M50 creative space, dedicated to local artists. Sadly it was a Monday and many of them were closed. But I got to see this amazing piece of architecture called 1000 Trees. It’s meant to be a mixed purpose complex, with residential/retail/office spaces inside. I don’t think it is operational yet. It adds a dramatic look to the local landscape. It’s located right next to Suzhou Creek, a designated green urban space.
Plentiful roadside scenes like this. You know something tastes good when locals are willing to sit anywhere to eat.
