Yuyuan Gardens
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2008
1
5
16
Trip End
Jan 03, 2009
Shanghai,
Zhejiang,
China
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Wrong! The gardens and bazaar are still overwhelmingly busy, and I received my first blast of Chinese crowds. I went there with Jay, my new friend through Ashley's work. She recently moved to Shanghai from the Philipines to live with her boyfriend. Kent works with Ashley and is also too busy to explore, so Jay and I have decided to explore the city together.
We took a taxi over to Old Town from Jing'an-about 28 kuai-and were dropped off just outside the entrance to the bazaar. It was teeming with sightseers, though I've noticed that cameras are not as often at the ready in Shanghai as in other countries, where the tourist hordes snap away at the sights like paparazzi at a Britney Spears sighting.
On alighting from the cab we were accosted by hawkers thrusting laminated catalogue pages in our faces.
"Watch! Watch!" they demanded. "Buy watch!"
I used the first thing I had been taught to say, which Al said was ever-important.
"Buyao!" (Don't want!)
Not to be deterred, they came at us again and again. "Gucci! Prada! Looka looka!"
"You want watch! You want pearls! Hey! You come here! Now!"
Awash in the throng, we wandered through the bazaar, looking for the entrance to the gardens, tentatively checking out the clouds of red lanterns hanging from the trees, the stalls and shops filled with good luck charms, cartoon cat bags, silk qingpao (also known as cheongsams, or traditional silk dresses) in garish colours, hand-tooled leather bags, chopsticks snug in silk cases, gaudy printed scarves, beaded sweaters, postcards, fans, traditional carved Chinese stamps, and whatever else says "traditional China" to the tourists.
I'm getting better at the haggling, but being from Canada where just about everything has a fixed price, it's not in my blood. It's an acquired skill I am still working to attain. Jay may be small in stature but she has a big attitude-she did admirably well at haggling with the "looka looka" vendors. But we did use my strategy of circulating through the maze of shops at least once, checking out what we would like to buy for Christmas presents and comparing prices without committing-though it can make the shopkeepers even more aggressive. One of them yelled after us in rising intonations as we left: "Hey. Hey! HEY! LADY!" Suddenly she yelled a lower price, about a third of the original asking price, which we fixed in our minds for our possible return later.
We made our way past the Mid-Lake Teahouse, so famous that Bill Clinton and Queen Elizabeth have visited there, and found our way into the gardens, escaping into its relative peace. Koi, fat on fish food sold outside the gates, swam placidly in pools amid the sculpted rocks. We scrambled through a tunnel to find ourselves at a pagoda with shuttered windows. The magnolia trees weren't in blossom but the camellias were.
The garden was founded by the Pan family and took 19 years to build, from 1559 to 1577, but was ransacked by the British during the Opium Wars of 1842. Historically, the Brits have always loved a good ransacking when they take over a city, especially in China. The garden was restored, though, and remains a tranquil getaway from the frantic pace of Shanghai, where modern day Brits continue to dash about in Burberry coats making slick business deals involving the future of the city.
We ended up in the gift gallery where you can buy tiny scorpions, beetles or starfish encased in drops of resin and strung on silver chains, or miniature paintings on pearls that require a magnifying glass to read. In another area, a lady took her time showing us jewellery from Tibet, reminiscent of North American native jewellery with its chunky silver and inlaid turquoise.
The thickening afternoon crowd became exhausting, like visiting Disneyland at the height of tourist season. We managed to escape the bazaar with some chopsticks and good luck charms in hand, ready to hurry up and wait for a taxi at the height of rush hour.
