Trapped!

So what exciting things did I get up to on the 3rd day of my Shanghai adventure?

First stop after breakfast was the 'Old Town' and a trip to see the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bazaar. I took the Metro to as close as I could get to the 'Old Town' and then walked. On my way I witnessed what I assume was a fire drill at one of the big shopping malls. There were firemen, the police and paramedic looking type people doing stuff whilst lots of bored shop staff looked on from the orderly rows they had been grouped in to (I think it was sorted by floor). All exciting stuff.

After a short walk through the 'Old Town', with a slight detour round a construction site which wasn't on my map, I made it to tourist tat central aka Yu Yuan Bazaar. What a real anti-climax. The buildings looked good but the shops etc. looked pretty crappy to my eyes. The Mid-Lake Pavilion was pretty cool, especially with the zig zag walkways to get to it (a feng shui feature), but this was heaving with tourists. The gardens themselves were small and not that special. I guess it didn't help that the Japanese destroyed them during WWII and they've been 'rebuilt'. The highlight of the Yu Yuan experience was the xiao long bao from the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. I went for the take-away option and the 20minute queue was worth it!

After the tourist tat of Yu Yuan I went for some real culture in the afternoon -- the Shanghai Museum. Here I saw some fairly interesting exhibitions on such things as bronze ware, jade, calligraphy porcelain etc.

After the museum I walked the short distance from People's Square to The Bund. I was contemplating going on a river cruise but decided against it as the weather wasn't the best. Instead I went to my second museum of the day -- The Bund museum. This is in the old Meteorological tower and is really a bar/cafe with some interesting old pictures on the wall. On my way back to my hotel I stopped off in the No.1 Food Store and the No.1 Department Store on East Nanjing Road. The food store sold lots of weird and wonderful stuff and the department store seemed to be a throw back the the 70s and 80s with lots of dubious quality Chinese merchandise.

I made the trek over to Pudong for dinner, mainly because I thought I'd have a drink afterwards at Cloud 9 -- the bar on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt in Jinmao Tower. Unfortunately it had started to rain and the prospect of a drink surrounded by clouds didn't really appeal. Instead I had to make to do with a really good meal from a Shanghainese restaurant called Shanghai Uncle.

The drama for the day came when I went to leave the shopping centre that the restaurant was in. I thought the best way would be to retrace my steps and leave via the way I came in. This was through the basement car park and into a pedestrian subway. Unfortunately the exit to the pedestrian subway was locked. Also the door that I had gone through had closed behind me and locked. No bother I thought, I'll just climb up the stairs and the doors are bound to be open on the next floor. They weren't, and I now appeared to be trapped in the fire escape. I tried several more floors and all the doors would open slightly but not all the way. At this point I had visions of spending the night sleeping on a stairwell! After a moment of mild panic wondering what to do, I resorted to brute force, and bust my way through one of the doors. The doors weren't locked but they had some catch which meant you could get into the fire escape through them, but not go the other way. I'm not sure where you were supposed to escape to if there was actually a fire!

After all that excitement it was time to get back to the hotel and be grateful for spending the night in a bed and not in a fire escape.