Shanghai: It's still raining...

The wonderful day in Shanghai continued with a trip to the Bund, a financial district and architectural area to visit. Normally, tourists would spend some time walking up the streets but since it was raining, we sort of got dropped off for a few minutes to enjoy the view and take a few pictures. 

By the end of the trip to the Bund, I was ready to end the day. I was tired and wet and cranky. However, our day was not anywhere nearly over. We headed to the Yuyuan bazaar in Shanghai to do some shopping and to visit the Yu Gardens. These were supposed to be the gardens of peace and happiness and all I wanted was a dry place to rest. We walked though the gardens admiring the beauty..in the rain.  Personally, I was ready to shop.

We then walked over to the Yuyuan Bazaar. Finally, a place where you can buy cheap Chinese made objects and you get them cheaply because you bargain with the merchants. This was also a place (if you knew where to look) to buy cheap knock-offs of extremely expensive bags. Now, this is not my thing, but I ended up with a group that wanted to check it out, so we headed down a main street to an alley where there were flats where people lived. Then we went through a gate, around a corner and into an extremely small room filled with purses and wallets. No pictures were allowed, of course because who wants to end up in a Chinese prison? After about 10 minutes of browsing and bargaining, I was ready to leave. The people in my group were still trying to decide on a purchase, so I headed out with one of the young boys in my group. We went back out to the main gate to wait on the rest of our people. After standing there for maybe 5 minutes, a young man waved us to come over to the gate. We shook our heads no--we were not interested in going back in. Then he asked us to move. It seems that two incredibly white people standing outside a local apartment complex was suspicious and we would call attention to the police--who patrolled regularly. So we moved a block up to the bazaar to wait instead. When a few others emerged from the gated area and I knew that the young boy with me was safe with someone else, I took off for the shops. It was time to get some things to bring home.

Of course, our day did not end with shopping. The tour group had set us up to see an acrobat show. We were all so tired and punchy that it was hard to be entertained, but I must say it was pretty decent.