The continued inclement weather and unreliable forecasts made it difficult to plan when to do things. On the agenda was a day trip to Suzhuo to visit the old Chinese gardens. But with the uncertainty regarding the weather the planning became difficult.
After changing into some fresh clothes I decided to take on the weather with my umbrella and go explore the city. Shanghai thankfully has a very good and easy to
understand metro system that transports you seemlessly around the city. I decided to make headway for the museum in the centre and after arriving in the centre, was unable to find it, until half an hours of wandering. By this stage the weather cleared (as it would everyday) and I decided to walk the main street down to the harbour overlooking the Pudong district and the Bund. The Bund is a row of early to mid century buildings built for the financial district of which parallels have been drawn with Wall street in the US but I have not been there! On the whole the view is impressive and Shanghai for me is right up there with best skyline in the world, particularly due to the odd rocket shaped building that is the communications tower.Watching the view and people taking photo's of people in front of the view, I was approached by three young Chinese students that spoke reasonable English. They are part of a scam that is also found in Beijing to sell cheap art work a inflated prices (according to the lonely planet, which I didn't rally read.) they invited me to look at their collection and with nothing better to do I went with them all the while to to there gallery on the 7th storey of an office building. They showed me through their
collections of works highlighting those works that they created themselves. the work on the whole was pretty ordinary, however some works which were created by the teachers were actually quite good. I wasn't intending to buy, but was eventually compelled to buy a set of four seasonal painting. Unfortunately I didn't have enough money (precisely to avoid losing too much money on scams) I had to make a deposit and then go all the way to my hotel and back to the city with the additional money. Upon my return, a little late the bill was settled and my three little assistants escorted to a relatively fancy restaurant, where I sat awkwardly on my own consuming my meal with a beer. I am still not sure why the girls escorted me to the restaurant. I did invite them in but they refused, saying they had a prior appointment.Afterwards tired and with little else to do I returned to the hostel, The hotel thankfully had a very nice common area in which to relax and heading toward the final stages of the European championships, I made good use of the projection screen with other football fans in the hotel. Supporting Germany in their quest towards a win.
Going to sleep early in the morning I woke up a little late and was lacklustre in my energy, and so hung around the hotel for while, eating breakfast. With wet weather still predicted I was in no hurry to get out there. As the day wore on the temperature increased and the sun started intermittently shining through the clouds. This compelled me to re-evaluate my plans and I decided to go wander through the French Concession, and area of Shanghai that was setup along side other international
settlements in the latter 19th century. this area which retains a lot of it low rise buildings and tree lined streets is good for shopping and wandering , with many boutique shops and cafe's. Me being on my own, I didn't stop to hang around and spent the time wandering, staring into peoples compounds and wandering past Sun Yat Sen's residence, before finding a seat in the nearby park for a few hours. There I watched people dancing, practicing tai-chi, playing with their kids, talking and seeing a group of loud mouth foreigners making a mockery of a statue of Lenin.
As the evening rolled in I left the park and walked to the nearest metro station and returned to the hotel. Back at the hotel I started talking to some of the other guest. Interestingly China seems to draw a different type of tourist than the rest of south east asia. Many of the foreigners I met at the hostel were looking at staying in China for a long period of time and many were also intending to work. Something that I rarely came across in south east asia. They kept me occupied for the evening before returning to bed frustrated that the scheduled rains that were supposed to come, weren't arriving continuing to a vagary to my plans.
The next morning I woke up with a conviction that in-spite of the weather I would take a tour to Suzhou, on the recommendation of Anson the tour guide, so I went to the front desk and booked the tour with no difficulties. I thought I would spend the rest of the day at the Shanghai museum, which again cam highly recommended. Now fully
proficient with the excellent metro system I took the long way to get to the centre, to see a bit more of the city. Stepping out of the metro station I walked towards the museum. By this stage I was somewhat ready for scams, having been had by one, so when the first group of students approach me to share a traditional tea ceremony with them I declined, however the second group convinced me, mainly because I was curious rather than I wanted to lose my money.For a supposedly very old and traditional tea house, it happened to be located on the third floor of a shopping centre. hmmm? Anyway, I was led into a small room where the students continued with their idle chit chat, before asking me to pick number between one and ten. Already a bit suspicious of their intent I refused to give an number until they told me what for. turned out what ever number you said was the amount of types of tea you would be trying. With the number trick failed we agreed that I would pick one and the other three would pick one each.
They then handed me the menu with the tea selections on them and the prices. I can't remember what exactly what they were, but they ranged from reasonable to 'hello, I am not a rich man!!' Anyway we selected our teas, with the cost being split evenly between the four of us. As we progressed through the whole ceremony with it's sniffing, eye moisturising and eventually drinking, we continued to share stories. By this stage the individual character started to emerge. There was a very self confident female that was starting to annoy me, a relatively nice and easy going girl and a guy, obviously new to the game, that was being harassed in not so subtle language by the two girls. time and tea rolled on and I was starting to get a little concerned about the price and some rather 'special' teas were starting to appear on the table. I made it clear to them that we should stop as I could not afford to pay. They said, 'its okay, just put t on your credit card!' Now it had been a policy of mine throughout my travels not to carry around my credit or bank cards in case I was mugged and to use cash as much as possible. It turned out to be a real blessing as I could clearly see how much money I had and that was the limit. Due to this the tea drinking was cut short and the bill was brought. This was lucky too, because after paying the bill I had little more than a few dollars left, which would be just enough to get me back to the hotel. One more tea and I would have been in debt which may have caused all kinds of problems!
The whole thing is a scam, but it was actually quite fun and at most I only lost about $30 on the whole exercise, due to me not having a credit card. As we left the tea house I got given a green something, which was immediately attached to my bag which was no doubt to indicate that I had been had and the others waiting didn't need to bother try me again.
Anyway the Shanghai museum is free, so I was still able to go. the museum is mainly a collection of artistic artefacts from the various periods and minority groups of Chinese history. I spent most of my time viewing the Chinese calligraphy, with
examples showing the different styles and evolution of the centuries. But other areas included traditional paintings, pottery and a section on minority group clothing with an impressive section of masks used in the theatre and ceremonies of the minority groups. It is an impressive museum and worth going to. I am told it is one of the best in ChinaReturning back to the hotel to get money, I then stepped out in the local district where a street market had popped up selling all kinds of clothing and food. None of the clothing really inspired me , so I stuck with the food, feasting on various BBQ skewers. Wandering the streets with an absolute sense of safety, much the same as I had experienced in China.
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