This morning our jet lag did catch up with us as we slept in until we couldn't bear missing out on the city for the day and got up. Our first stop was Yuyan Gardens and Bazaar. Our taxi dropped us off 1 block from the entrance, which was lucky because we walked into a jewlery store and oogled at the stones for a while, then went upstairs to the jade gallery. I bought kate a jade necklace which we spent a good amount of time finding just the right size and color.
Walking into the bazaar I got side tracked several times by stall after stall of interesting trinkets. Kate (and her stomach) kept us on track and we found the famous dumpling restaraunt, Nanxiang Mantoudian, located right on the little lake in Yuyan. We waited in a line for about 20 min before I saw chinese bypassing the line and walking upstairs. We followed suit and waited until four nice people offered us to sit with them. Our stomachs were eager for our Xia Longbao (crab meat dumpling) even though we didn't know what it was or how it would tast. Nonetheless, if it is called the most famous dumpling in Shanghai, and Shanghai is famous for dumpling... well it will be worth it. And it was. I can't tell you how great it tasted and how I am wanting one right now as I type this. The crab is caught 2 hours away in a freshwater lake called Xi Hua (West Lake) in the city of Hangzhou (more on that tomorrow) and shelled fresh in the restaraunt. The people we were sitting with also reffered us to a Japanese restaruant (which we tried that night... it was great!) and a shopping district in the French Concession that is fun.
After our meal we enjoyed the peaceful Yuyan gardens and wandered around the old style Chinese buildings, pagodas, and gazebos. Water and stone shaped the gardens and made them compartmentalized like a maze, not to mention very beautiful. On the way to catch a cab I decided I would buy a few choice silk ties and soon we were driving to the French Concession.
We arrived at Xiangyang market and the first thing we heard was, "hello, Rolex watch... hello... hello, Rolex watch." We heard that about 500 times more over the course of our shopping in the market. This market was littered with fake purses, ties, shoes, clothes, watches... you name it. It was actually really fun checking things out and we did buy a bit of fake fashion and felt fashionable doing so. Kate bought some Prada shoes... then bought me a pair to match, well at least the male version without the extreemly pointy toe that hers boastfully displayed. After a few hours we were exausted with the barganing and ran out gasping for fresh air on the main road.
From there we walked towards our hotel and made it to the Japanese restaraunt the people in the dumpling place recommended. It was great, possibly some of the best sushi I've had, and it was a perfect end to the night for us.
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