September 16, 2025
Today splurged to beat the heat and cover some ground in Shanghai!
We hired a luxury car with driver and private guide & started at Yu Gardens; they say you haven't been to Shanghai unless you see! The guide made heat and experience worthwhile. She brought us portable personal fans to carry and that along with our umbrellas it greatly helped. The luxury car with driver picking up and dropping off at entries, in blissful cool was WOW! Guide got us through w good stories and quickly thru crowds and directed best pics.
Next was the water village of Zhujiajiao, one of the best preserved ancient towns. It's a little over an hour outside the city of Shanghai and was established 1700 years ago. There are 36 stone bridges and numerous rivers connecting area. There are tons of shop and restaurants down the narrow streets that line the river, and many house stay accommodations, but no hotels allowed in old town. A monk raised the funds for the first bridge to be built to help out the people who lived in the area.
Then we traded a trip to top of the Shanghai Tower, for a new art installation area we heard about night before on Food Tour. It is called the Oil Drums and it is literally inside old oil tanks - very interesting space, with modern art collection that was very coolly lit.
Our final stop was a visit to The Fake Markets. I wasn't looking for anything particular, just wanted to see what it was all about with a local. There are several around town - this one we went underground, into a parking garage and then was escorted up an elevator, by one of secret vendors. He lead us to closed off room, with all the handbag knock offs. Then negotiations started!
