The next three days in Shanghai were marked by aching feet and a decided lack of sleep. Fortunately my sheer enthusiasm in exploring this awesome new place definitely gave me the needed energy to get out and see as much as possible. Applying my touring formula from my travel experiences in the last year, I tried to group attractions by location and time commitments, plot public transportation routes, and set out with maps tearing at the corners from so much folding/unfolding.
Friday was the first day of solo touring and I headed to YuYuan Garden as enthusiastically recommended by one of Carrie's friends the night before at the scotch bar. I had planned out my trip over a monster buffet breakfast (which eventually cheated me out of any street foods as I'd eaten too much to eat again), reading articles from three travel sites: Travel China Guide, Frommers maps page, and the hotel website. When I emerged from the metro station closest to the YuYuan Garden, I was immediately approached by a scam that I had JUST read about! A young couple asked me to take their picture, then engaged me in a conversation that lead to me just having to do a tea ceremony and they'd be so happy to take me! I thanked them and made it another 1/4 kilometer before I ran into another couple asking me to take their picture. Whether they were scammers or not, the second group got ignored.
Tourists were streaming towards YuYuan, as promised by the websites who detailed crowds that almost prevent movement on the weekends. I consulted a map and headed down a narrow alley lined with shops selling chopsticks, fuzzy panda head gear of all types, hanging pictures, calligraphy supplies, faux-jade bracelets, and the rest of the typical tourist-focused gear one can expect in Shanghai.
YuYuan Garden Old City Shanghai
The architecture was charming. It was the wooden houses with dramatic rooflines, decorative balconies, and removable doors you should expect, with updated paint jobs and finishes that you wouldn't expect of a self appointed "old city". As I went deeper, the crowds grew thicker and I questioned if I'd be able to make it form one side of the actual garden to the other. Motivated by a need for a public bathroom and general dislike for crowds, I finally found the entrance to the garden tucked back in a corner of an impressively massive shopping complex. The ticket counter was a hole in the wall near the door - something I came to expect as I ran into this hole-in-the-wall ticket counter repeatedly over the next few days.
Oddly enough, there was no one in line to purchase a ticket to the garden for which this area (and metro stop) was named. There was no one in line to enter the garden and I breezed through the doorway and into the peace and quiet of a well-sculpted Chinese garden that was essentially only existing that morning for me and a scant handful of tourists I rarely ran across.
YuYuan Gate
It was lovely, peaceful, and the sunlight quality was one of golden winter, promising warmth against a stiff chill. There were many buildings, passageways, water features, trees, and most interesting to me, a lot of these rocks that had been imported in and arranged to form mini-mazes and overhanging passageways in the yellow, very uneven and sculptural rock. It was a photographer's dream of easy images, settings, and light. I took my time and rarely had to wait to get a photo without anyone in it.
Hidden courtyard - I watched several small groups of tourists walk right past the walkway to this place.
the roof in the hidden courtyard
Shanghai lock
one of the prettier ways of getting from here to there
YuYuan dragon
Carved relief
The afternoon sunlight
There were many places to explore and I took my time after finding the public bathroom.
The floor
A little elevated in name, but still a nice bathroom
halls and doors
inviting entry
Tower of Happiness, Hall of Mildness, Pit of Despair!
Illusions of openings
I was beckoned in by a young lady standing in a group of ladies all chatting and stomping their feet against the cold to try some tea in the tea house. I rested already-tired feet and let her pour me a few types of tea before settling in to bargain to pay way too much for a small bag of remarkably good tea. I enjoyed the tiny art museum featuring painting of tigers endlessly roaring in a series of fantastical settings, even purchasing a roaring tiger scroll painting of my own. I found a hidden courtyard with a fantastic stage and ceiling, tucked so deep in the garden that only four of us had found it that morning and I emerged to watch group after group bypass the door unknowingly.
This guy is roaring so hard his eyes are crossed
I found myself unceremoniously dumped back onto the tourist-packed old city streets after a turn through the maze of the garden and immediately purchased a faux-fur hat with a plastic red star on it for Aaron at 30 yuan, followed by a Chinese warrior as a DJ printed teeshirt, and got the heck out of old city.