The Dark Side

There is always the dark side in a city. In Hong Kong there is Kowloon being the dark side. In Vancouver you have Richmond. In Halifax you have Dartmouth. In Shanghai you have the north of Suzhou Creek.

Travelling to the north of Suzhou Creek is totally unnecessary in your day-to-day life, as there isn't a lot going on there. The only time I go over the creek would be to visit the Qipu clothing mall, which has now slowly being taken over by the ex-Xiang Yang Market vendors. (Xiang Yang Market was the place to be to buy your top-quality-international-renowned brand names such as "Lolex" and "Guci". Anyways. My neighbour U and I decided to brave it and visit the dark side today. The trip's purpose was to explore the Lu Xun (a famous Chinese writer 1881-1936)Park and Museum, and to walk the former Jewish neighbourhood.

For a full cultural experience we decided to take the train/subway. The subway here is pretty efficient but usually cramp-packed with travellers. Usually it's a lot easiler to get a taxi - except in the rain of course. For today we figured it was not rush hour and we should be alright.
We were also pretty stoked to go on the Line, 3 which is above ground.

There were more people on the train then we anticipated. Overall people were not too pushy and we all got on gracefully. You definitely need your space here on the train and this was probably as crowded as we can handle. Take note of the guy's hair. I hope it's hair wax.

View from the train. This is as sunny as Shanghai gets. I guess the grease patches on the window on the train made it look worse.

I think a lot of these people were travelling to the train station to go back to their home towns (hence the luggage). They were generally happy smiley people (and a little curious on us as we looked a little out of space with our maps etc). I think the prospect of them going home for Chinese New Year put smiles on their faces. How sweet!

A common sight in the city: puff jackets and bicycle.

Finally we made it to Lu Xun Park - a lot more beautiful then I thought it would be!

Retired opera performers giving public performance

Another nice view in the park. We decided that it has picnic potential! Glass of wine and some cheese in the Spring perhaps?

We headed to Lu Xun's former residence not too far from the park. The tour was nice and sweet.

Lu Xun's front door:

After our lunch break we decided to walk down to the Bund and saved the Jewish neighbourhood for some other day.

The walk, while not eventful, was rather interesting with a number of unique looking buildings. It was good to burn off our pizzas too.

Suzhou Creek.

A newly discovered church - it was bricked in for all those years. Not sure what the story was behind it.

Thought of the day: Shanghai is pretty tourist-friendly I have to say. You can walk around most part of the city without feeling threatened or worried. People mind their own businesses and never once I felt worried walking on my own (even at night) ever since we moved here.