Shanghai daily life

Definitelly I know now that big city life is not my life. Well, big city maybe yes, but definitelly not huge, enormous metropolis like Beijing or Shanghai. It is far too much. I hate crowds and as I get into the crowd I want to run away.
City like Warsaw, Munich, Zurich is still ok, I guess I could also live in London, but that seems like upper limit.
I hate it that you cannot go as fast as you want but you have to follow the crowd, it takes ages to transfer from one subway line to another, and what´s more sometimes you have to wait at the platform until you manage to squeye into one of the carriages (Beijing experience).
Maybe Shanghai is now even more crowded because of the Expo, which is also crowded and honestly I wonder how all those ppl are patient enough to wait in those long lines to get into pavillions. I was picking only pavillions with short lines (about 20 mins waitiing, what was a lot already) like Mexico - really nice one and interresting, showing culture, backgroungs, history; Chile - I really did not see connection between their display and country itself; South and Central America Countries - not much to be seen and Poland - line was longer, but I desperately wanted to see it and eat some Pierogi (very popular pilish dish).
Pavilion was nicely done, but I was not amazed.

Expo

Expo

Expo, Mexico

Expo, Mexico

Yesterday I went to Suzhou, according to Marco Polo, the "Venice of the Orient" or "Venice of the East". Indeed one very beautiful line along the canal with small bridges, romantic caffes and art galeries lightened with red lampions.
It is also city of gardens (but not gardens as we know them - grass trees and flowers, they have man-made hills, pagodas, kiosks, pavilions, and water-features, all gathered together in a relatively compact area) and silk.
Funny thing when I arrived there, I did not know where to go to get into the city. But I´ve spoted european elderly couple and asked them. Finally we´ve taken cab to share to drive us into the city. When I wanted to give them money they´ve declined mentioning, that when they were students they also did not have too much money :-). How nice.
Wandering through the city I´ve entered small park, where in the middle there was dancing. I waa regreting so much that I was there on my own. Otherwise I´d definitelly be dancing there.

Dancing in park

Master-of-Nets Garden

Canal

Where are the owners?

Along the canal

Canal

Canal

I was terrified when I saw that my jeans are so torn, that they will not survive next laundry. I was terrified even more, whet I´ve realised how small chinese women are and how difficut it´ll be to get trousers here. But luckily I´ve found some in Esprit (I had to take the biggest size they had, of course). Maybe not the cheapest choice, but it did not matter too much. So my mission which I was convinced is lost even before it started was actually successful. The same as my waxing mission.
I went to Dragonfly and I must admit that they had really good service. So money paid was worth it. What surprised me, was how they did armpits. Not with regular wax, but with some pink, strawberry smelling silikon like substance. It was warm when she was covering my armpits with it and when it was cooling down it was getitng more hard. But it has worked very well.

I have one more mission today - Hong Kong tickets mission. I´m affriaid it can be a problem.....

Stunning Shanghai

Shanghai makes completly different impression that Beijing or Xi´an. As Beijing is for me huge, busy, unfriendly and still comunist city, Xi´an is smaller, more friendly but still busy and comunist, Shanghai is huge, busy and very cosmopolitan. First place that I´ve hit was Nanjing Dong Lu, which is shopping street, and it feels like Oxford Street in London. That gave me good feeling, even though I was completly shattered after all day walking in Xi´an before I´ve left, than 12h journey in train to Beijing (yes I know I did not plan it too well) and next flight to Shanghai in the afternoon, which meant half a day waiting in Beijing (what a pity that my Frequest Flyer does not entitle me to enter to the lounge in Beijing) and hanging around on the airport. The only good thing about that was that I´ve found stands with free internet, so I´ve done some research essential for further trip.

Maglev - fast train from Pudong Airport to Shanghai

I´ve struggled a little bit to find Julian´s apartment, but not too much. And apartment is briliant. First when I´ve found the building I was not that happy, but on the other hand side I knew, that he would not be living in some shabby place, and I was not mistaken. Very nicely renovated apartment, at the Suzhou Creek´s bank, with the overview to Bund - Shanghai business centre.
I´ve started sightseeing of Shanghai from Old Town which is the most traditionally Chinese area of Shnanghai with some lilongs (longtang or shikumen) which are equivalent to Beijing´s hutongs, Yuyuan Gardens and Bazar, where I´ve bought one of the things that I´ve promised myself - pearl earings. I´ve paid 50% of the original price, but I wonder if it would still be possible to bargain more, especially that I´ve bought 2 pairs... Probably yes, but even though I think that price was resaonable.

Yuyuan Gardens

Why not?

Lilong gate

Here used to be lilong district, check what´s left

Interesting thing there is Chenxiangge Nunnery - community of around 40 darkbrown-clothed nuns. They look exactly like monks. Their heads shortly shaved and in my opinion orange robes.

Female Monk in Chenxiangge Nunnery

Second district, that I´ve liked a lot was French Concession. Following Lonely Planet tour I´ve seen some fancy houses (like fairy-tale look like castle owned by Swedish businessman till 1949, spanish house, Sun Yatsen´s former residence and lilongs of course), Shikumen Museum, which showes how they look like inside, Xintandi (renovated lilongs and turned into modern and fashionable district with western restaurants and chains) and Chinese Printed Blue Nankeen Exhibition Hall, where blue-and-white cotton fabric (sometimes called blue calico) can be bought and seen.

Xintandi

Spanish Villa

fairy-tale look like castle owned by Swedish businessman - Eric Moller

Chinese Printed Blue Nankeen

That does not seem much, but in fact it was around 7h of walking and hanging around which caused that the only thing that I was dreming in the end was subway to get home.