Hangzhou-Shanghai: Day 7

After breakfast, we took the bus back to Shanghai and on the way, stopped by a "Chrysanthemum Tea Factory". The guy was pushing real hard for us to get the tea leaves (or flower buds in this case) but instead, all of us bought the instant ones called "BaBaoCha"... with chrysanthemum tea, then errr "kei ji", and arrr... some other unknown herbs and most importantly with rock sugar... making it sweet and yummy instead of bitter... :P

In Shanghai, we visited "Tian Mai Jade Shop"... Again, nothing much cos I don't quite like jade... but they taught us the right way to 'sayang' a "Pi Siu" for more wealth luck. Start with the head... then the back... and finally the buttock ("Pi Siu" has no buttock so all the wealth it gathered are accumulated at the buttock)... then put the palm you used to 'sayang' it in your pocket... :)

On our first night in Shanghai, my bf took us to the "Cheng Huang Temple". At that time, we all wondered why we had to take photo in front of the dark entrance of a 'temple'. The taxi driver insisted that we should at least see it and he even said this: "If you've not been to "Cheng Huang Temple", you've not been to Shanghai".

So today when we finally visited it in the day time... imagine our surprise when we found it hustling and bustling with life! "Cheng Huang Temple" is not a temple (don't be misled by the name)! It is in fact a huge supermarket and food bazaar! It even has Star Bucks and Haagen Dazs ok! Hehehe... What was so special about this place was that there was indeed a temple within the shopping area... but the biggest attraction was the beautiful large wooden structures and seemingly handcrafted rooftops that created an ambient of past times!

And at night when the lights were all on... it was even more beautiful and spectacular!!!

All the buildings surrounded a main square with large pond filled with carps! In its middle, there was also this "Yu Yuan" Garden, a calm Chinese garden beautifully illustrating its namesake, which means "peace and quiet" in Chinese.

That night, after dinner, we took a cruise along the "Huangpu River" (Huang Pu Jiang) which literally means the "Yellow Bank River". The boat has 3 floors and we went up to the highest level. It was windy and terribly cold but it also offered the best view of the Pu Dong and Pu See districts along the river.

Pu Dong District comprises of buildings with new architectural style. The "Oriental Pearl TV Tower" (Tung Fang Tian See Ming Chu Ta) was one of the more outstanding ones...

Pu See District on the other hand houses dozens of old colonial and historical buildings that once housed numerous banks and trading houses from Britain, France, U.S, Russia, Germany and more!. The one with the green roof top is called "Peace Hotel" (He Ping Fan Tian) where that dunno what "Mak-Kor" from the drama "Shanghai Tan" was shot dead the minute he stepped out of the hotel...

After that, we were taken to this park which offered the clearest view of "Shanghai Bund" (Wai Tan) for a group shot. The Bund centres on a stretch of the Zhongshan Road, named after Sun Yat-sen (Soong Ching-ling's husband). Zhongshan Road is a largely circular road which formed the traditional conceptual boundary of Shanghai city "proper". To the west of this stretch of the road stands some 52 buildings of various Western classical and modern styles which is the main feature of the Bund. To the east of the road was formerly a stretch of parkland culminating Huangpu Park. This park is the site of the infamous sign reported to have proclaimed "no dogs or Chinese"!!!

The final stop for the night was "Xintiandi". A square with pubs and bistros. Also large shopping mall with gigantic Christmas trees...