Another delightful day in Shanghai

French Concession Area, Shanghai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After visiting the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum in the morning, we headed for the modern and trendy French Concession for lunch. We were recommended a typical local Chinese restaurant and were not disappointed with the food. Most Chinese restaurants have pictures of the food but not all have English descriptions – this time we were lucky and had both. After a bit of initial nervousness, we had got the hang of ordering by pictures. As an aside, we are amazed at the amount of food that the Chinese eat and still seem not to carry any extra weight. However, in discussions with our Chinese guide, we had learned that the younger generation like Western junk food too much, and that China has an increasing problem of youth obesity, just like the UK or the US.

After our lunch, we strolled around the trendy shops of the French Concession for an hour or so, amazed at the quite high prices. We then took a taxi back to the Bund and strolled by the river for an hour before returning to our hotel. It was a pleasant sunny afternoon with a temperature of about twenty-five degrees Celsius, so it was quite lovely.

In the evening, we saw an amazing acrobatic show for a couple of hours – this was first rate. The show was right out in the suburbs, which was a new experience for us – remember that Shanghai is big, with a population of twenty three million. After the show, at about 9.00 PM, we tried to get a bite to eat locally but were too late for all the Chinese restaurants which close early, so we headed back to downtown, getting out of a taxi at the intersection of the Bund and Nanjing Road. We returned to the Jazz Bar at the Peace Hotel for a snack and a drink, listening to the jazz. It was modern jazz and we both did not really appreciate it as much as the traditional jazz of a few evenings earlier. We finished the evening with a late night stroll along the Bund, overlooking the Deco buildings, the sky-scrappers in the Financial District across the river, and the ocean-going river traffic hooting their deep horns announcing their presence.

The late-night stroll on Shanghai’s Bund will always be a lasting memory.