Our final full day with the event was arranged by the organizers to show the teams some of the attractions of Shanghai.

Starting at 8am, we boarded our bus at our hotel in Qingpu and headed into Shanghai where we encountered the standard busy traffic into town. Our first stop was the Oriental Pearl Tower, the third tallest tower in the world. Our tour took us up 263m to the Sightseeing Floor, where we got a 360 degree view of Shanghai as well as a chance to walk on the glass floor on the outdoor observation deck.

After enjoying the sights and getting the usual “glass floor” pictures, the teams were then shuttled to a nearby hotel for lunch consisting of typical cuisine from Shanghai. For the afternoon, we were then taken to the Yuyuan Gardens. Unfortunately we did not have time to enter the gardens themselves, but wandered around the markets surrounding them. It seems awfully odd walking around what looks like a Chinese temple but seeing Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Starbuck’s in addition to the seemingly endless shops selling souvenirs.

We did find the jumbo xiaolongbao but it wasn’t exactly what we expected. It’s actually soup served in “bun”, hence the straw. In the evening, the organizers provided us tickets to an outside art festival concert that celebrated the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Held in Mandarin, the majority of the team did not comprehend what was happening but enjoyed the music and dance. There seemed to be two music artists (I’m not sure who they are since none of us follow Chinese music) as well as a musical number with a little girl singing while waving the Chinese flag. The concert event capped it off when they ended with a musical number involving the Expo 2010 mascot, Haibao.

Today everyone will be splitting up and going their separate ways. Some will be heading home to Vancouver. Some will be moving to a hotel closer to the heart of Shanghai, while others are going to Beijing and Singapore. Hopefully some of them will post up their own thoughts or pictures from this event.

Whilst i save for holidays it is good to find some cheap things for the weekend. Last weekend we had a little wander around a new part of Shanghai that i hadn’t been to much before. It is most famous for the Memorial House of the First National Congress of the Communist Party. We had a little look around this, but i will save that for another post.

Close by are the parks of Xiantiandi & Huaihai. Chinese parks are a little different to those in the UK with greater concentration on plants, trees, statues, things to do, etc… which leads to less space to actually sit down on grass and chill out. Indeed there is no enough room in most to really do as you please, but its still far nicer than the crowded streets of traffic that surround. They’re also much cleaner than the rest of the city.

Something i always love, that seems unique to China, is the Tai Chi and singing that many Chinese love to do in the park. Indeed many retired locals seem to spend their whole day in the park, with some areas specially catering for their needs with exercise equipment and tables and chairs set up to keep them fit, healthy and sociable. Despite gambling being officially illegal here many old people also use these areas to play poker and Mah jongg.

This area of Shanghai is called Luwan. We were hoping to walk further on to Lao Xi Men but i was getting hungry so we saved that for another weekend. Lao Xi Men has various things to see such as the White Cloud Temple, West Miao Temple, Yu Bazaar, Fuyou Market, Dajing Lu Market, Yuyuan Gardens, Huxingting Teahouse and Chenghuangmiao Temple. This would be a full day in itself! This area seems pretty useful with many things to see and all within about 10 minute walk of each other. Central Shanghai does seem smaller and more compact to me than London, but perhaps i just haven’t investigated enough yet.

I took a video of one interesting local sing-along in the park, but you’ll have to tilt your head! Does anyone know how to get YouTube to rotate videos? I can’t be arsed to stick it in video software Turn up your sound.

I include photos of the parks below. For anyone interested, i now have a flickr page too where more photos can be seen.

Taipingqiao Park

Taipingqiao Park

Huaihai Park

Huaihai Park

The next day we went to Yuyuan Gardens in Old Shanghai City, considered one of the best gardens in China… Whatever that means. We went for the Xiaolongbao sold at a famous restaurant in the Old City. It’s a three story restaurant with each floor a different method of serving. On the bottom floor you stand in line and you get 24 xiaolongbaos for 16rmb ($2) in a takeout case. On the 2nd floor you pay twice as much but there are shared seats you can actually sit down and not much of a wait. The third floor you spend 10 times as much, which frankly is still cheap, and you get private tables and apparently the finest xiaolongbao they have. I say apparently because damned if we could turn down 12 cents a boa. We got 48, drenched them in vinegar, and went through them in about 3 minutes sitting by the green lake. Then went for dim sum. Then walked around the gardens. They were actually pretty nice, but can’t really compare to food.

12 cents each

Old City

Old City

Ann getting a silhouette made.

Oolong Tea

Yuyuan Gardens

Yuyuan Gardens

We did some shopping and then went for dinner, and then to The Bund.

Chinese rice wine. The cheapest bottle. It was excellent.