Day 31 I Heart Shanghai

Well, today I saw one of those “I *heart* Shanghai (or NY or DC or wherever)” signs, and I thought about it for a minute, and decided it was true. I do heart Shanghai. At this moment, I would even go as far to say that I love Shanghai (but maybe Monday as I walk to work I might be back to just liking it). Today marks 4 weeks full weeks that I’ve been here, and Shanghai and I have managed to pull it together and be good friends. I’m definitely not saying that I would rather be here an anywhere else (is that what love is?), but when people ask me in 6 weeks if I liked Shanghai, I will sincerely say “I loved Shanghai!” I might even have to get a “I heart Shanghai” shirt to prove it.

Anyways, I started Saturday off with a visit to the Shanghai Museum, a pretty well known spot among tourists in Shanghai with lots of Chinese artifacts. Getting there was sort of an adventure, mostly because I had to walk through a portion of People’s Square that was full of these disgusting pigeon-like birds (except they were worse than pigeons because they were bigger and seemed braver). If you’re reading this you probably know me well enough to know that I am terrified of birds, especially pigeons (and now this bird). So you can imagine how awful this experience was. I managed to survive about 5/6ths of the way through, and then one took flight right next to me and I literally freaked out. We’re talking screaming, maybe a little arm flapping, definitely weird looks from the Chinese mom I was trying to hold onto, it was really embarrassing. Not my finest moment but I’m sure I’ll be able to laugh about it at some point. Right now it’s still making me cringe. (But I still love Shanghai.)

So after that little fiasco, I got into the museum after a short wait in line and headed into the bronze sculpture exhibit first. This museum is organized by themes (like bronze, sculpture, calligraphy...) instead of time period, which was pretty cool. Basically think of your most stereotypical Imperial Chinese artifact, and that was the kind of thing they were showing. It was pretty cool, but after a while things start to run together. There were some really neat sculptures, though, mostly of Buddhism-related objects. There’s not much to say besides that. Possibly my favorite portion was on the top floor where they have an exhibit of the different cultures within China with costumes and things like that from each group of people. I was most impressed by how similar some of these cultures appear to other world cultures. For example, some of the costumes looked exactly like something you’d see in a museum exhibit on American Indians or Hawaiians or Alaskans. Maybe that’s a big ‘duh’, but I thought it was pretty cool.

After the Shanghai Museum and a little shopping in the labyrinth called the underground of People’s Square, I headed to Taikang Lu and Taizifang. Taizifang is a block of French Concession (I think?) that is really artsy and has lots of cute little boutiques. Unfortunately, it’s recently become pretty touristy, but it’s still a really cool place. I had a really good lunch at a cool Thai place where we all sat on the cool pillows on the floor instead of at tables and used forks instead of chopsticks. (Small confession- I actually really like chopsticks, they are way more fun than forks, especially when you get to eat yogurt with them). After doing a little shopping, and a little more shopping at the Pearl Market (second time, I just love it) where I randomly ran into a cute little Mormon family, I decided to head home. I inadvertently took the wrong subway, so getting back took a little longer, but it had been such a great afternoon that it really didn’t matter.