Day 3 & Day 4 Shanghai

Travelling in the summer may suck in many ways. After a night's sleep, my face got distorted by mosquito bites. One on my eyelid and another on my lip, that's why my face became asymmetrical. There is really no way around it, the mosquitoes love me. The only solution is to sleep with the blanket over my head, or fuming the whole room with anti-mosquito fumes 3 HOURS before bedtime.

In the morning, my uncle gave me a quick overview of Shanghai's geography. Basically, Shanghai downtown is separated by the Huangpu River. Huangpu is the district west of it and Pudong is to the east, and surrounding the two are many other suburban districts. Huangpu is more of the city centre, where People's Square is located. It's the centre point of the metro system, so people traffic was heavy. There is a shopping street underground, and some of the store sell fake brands, especially Nike and Adidas. The People's square also consisted of Shanghai Art Museum, Theatre, and Exhibition Hall, so it's like a cultural center all around.

We headed to a nearby park, People's Park, which supposedly is huge and impressive. To be honest it was not up to par for me, it doesn't really compare well to parks in Canada. The worst part is it's not free! Why? It's a park isn't it? Ok anyway we still went in and got hollared by a group of smelly men sitting on the grass. They weren't doing anything really, why in the middle of the day would a group of adult men sit on the grass together?
What's even funnier is a big sign (shown in photo) that list the seven rules that Shanghai residents should follow: no spitting, no littering, no damaging public property, no stepping on the grass, no jaywalking, no smoking in public, and no swearing. (Last part is the best) It's such a cheesy sign that I took a photo of it to remember it by.

At night we head to The Bund, Shanghai's signature sight. Many of the buildings have styles from different times in History, like Baroque, Gothic and Roman, which preserves the glamorous Shanghai during the colonial times. It truly is what I saw on many Mandarin TV dramas, reminded me of the times where ladies wore cheongsam or night gowns, and men wore suits and english hats (don't forget the 20's chicago style hair!) My cousin took me to the East side of Huangpu River, to avoid the crowd. From this side I wasn't able to see the Pearl Tower, but the walk was much more comfortable without the crowd.

If I can't see it, I will go on it. Pearl Tower was the next stop. The tower has 3 ball-like structures, and ticket prices vary. The cheapest ticket that we bought only allowed us to ascend to the middle ball. The highest ball seemed to be a 360 Restaurant reserved for a romantic dinner. The lowest ball has a open view (no glasses) of Shanghai, so the price is higher. We got to the second ball and the view was a little bit disappointing as the glasses are kind of foggy. All the photos turned out to be foggy, so it wasn't the most thrilling experience. To make matters worse, we ran into a tourist group, so it was crowded.

What makes the trip to the Pearl Tower memorable was the wax museum in the basement floor, the Shanghai History Museum. It was decent in area, and hardly anybody was in it. The museum included a collection of wax figures displaying the life of Shanghai, mainly during the 1930's. It was a time period when both imported cars and coaches roamed the street, when nostalgic candies were made, when people smoked opium for pleasure, and when nightclub is for divas and black markets. We interacted with the life size figures and it was totally fun.

Day 4 is sleeping day, didn't do much.