I actually took a bunch of lovely photos for about 40 minutes before realizing that I had left my memory card in the laptop at home while working on a previous blog post. D'oh! Luckily, we hadn't gotten too far and I was able to walk back around and catch of few of the shots I missed before. I'm sure some good ones were lost, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I was just happy I realized it relatively early in the day, and not after we'd been out and about for 4 hours! (The resulting photo set is here)
So, we wandered around the general Yuyuan area for a while, being accosted left and right by extremely aggressive sales people hocking their wares and trying to badger us to go into their booths. I suppose the tactic must work on somebody, but I can't figure out who. I'm really firmly in the camp of, "the more you annoy me and the more rude you are, the less likely I am to buy something, even if it's something I REALLY want!" We walked by and tried to ignore them, and for the most part it works, but it gets old fast.
Thankfully, we were able to retreat to the solitude of the actual garden itself. It's a relatively small area, but quite lovely and I love the design of the buildings, the winding paths, and the many places to see different views of the gardens. Also, the many different door and window shapes are so neat!
Mom, enjoying the nice weather:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Me, in one of the great doorways:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
How great are the names of these parts of the garden??? I mean, "Big Rockery"? That's just an awesome name.
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Great roof:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Garden:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Little deer on top:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
I just LOVE this dragon:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Lanterns in Yuyuan:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Winding side-by-side walkways:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Once we had finished wandering around inside the garden, we went back out to the main tourist area so I could get some more photos. The central spot is this one, with it's lovely pond, amazing buildings, and winding bridge:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
There's also a great supply of fish, and a turtle!
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
The bridge:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Mom and the center tea house:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Capturing the old and new of Shanghai, the World Financial Center building (I affectionately think of it as the bottle-opener) appears on the left:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
And here I am, in this lovely setting:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Once we found our way out of the maze of buildings, having stopped to admire some of the wares but not really buying anything, we found ourselves in a mall. Sort of an outdoor mall. But it allowed me to buy a few clothing items, which were needed because I successfully packed light when coming here. We were also able to find a tasty restaurant to eat Hong Kong-style food in. We just had some dumplings and a great fried noodle dish, but it hit the spot!
In attempting to get back to the metro station without the benefit of a decent map, we happened upon the old shopping street that I had wanted to see. At this point we weren't quite in a shopping mood but it was really fun to walk down the street.
The street, and Pudong (new-section of Shanghai) buildings in the background:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Despite the lack-of-map, an innate sense of direction served us pretty well. Well, that and the fact that Shanghai has many metro stations and covers the area really well! I can also commend Shanghai Metro for its signage. When you're in the station, it becomes pretty obvious which way to go. Particularly thanks to things like this:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
and this:
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| From Yuyuan Gardens and nearby Shanghai - October 9, 2011 |
Which brings us to the end of Sunday's adventuring. We did more relaxing in the evening, which was much needed because I returned to working on Monday. Our cousin Peter, who currently lives in Bangkok, arrived on Monday. So while I'm toiling away this week Peter and my mom can visit some of the other Shanghai sights. I think I'll still get in some adventuring this week, too, though!
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