Puxi : 浦西

i'm not quite finished with shanghai...

the reminding time in shanghai we spent wondering around the streets on the puxi side (浦西) of the river. this is the old shanghai.
we checked out the famous (and overly crowded!) yuyuan gardens (豫园) which were a bit of a tourist trap...
outside the gardens were rows and rows of shops selling chinese "antiques", postcards, and good luck trinkets etc. i think you get my drift.







K-chan and i have no interest in that so we made our way over to the french concession, an area once known as the paris of the east.
here can be found xintiandi (新天地); a trendy open-cafed, boutique stored, yuppie cluster of shops.
in the same area are shikumen (石库门); or traditional european/shanghai style homes. pretty stylish.



we actually spent a couple of days walking some of the trendy backstreets of shanghais various neighborhoods eating an array of international cuisine from thai, to french, italian and of course chinese.



all good vacations have to come to an end...
we took the maglev train (i know, awful name).
maglev comes from the words "magnetic" and "levitation" as that's what it is, a super fast train which is levitated through the use of magnets.
and like i said, it's super fast; the 30km trip only takes 7 minutes to go from the city (unfortunately not the city center!) to the airport. talk about zooming.
but don't expect comfort and style like the shinkansen (bullet trains) in japan. although fast; the interior of the train was a bit of a let-down.
one-way ticket 50-yuan (40-yuan if you show your air ticket) and 80-yuan for a return ticket.



so that's shanghai.
just some extra pics i took here and there.

a very local foot massage parlor


me soaking my feet & 2 old ladies doing twist exercises on the street


the old & the new and the "seven don'ts"