Rain was in the forecast and arrived as promised on Tuesday morning. After breakfast, we waited a bit for the rain to let up then jumped on the subway for about 40 minutes to Qibao Ancient Town. Exiting the subway, we were greeted with misting rain that did not let up for the rest of the day. Boo.
To help keep Eric’s camera dry, we stopped at a shoe store selling umbrellas for $1.
A short walk later and we were standing at the entry gate where a kiosk was selling prayer items and attraction tickets.
We continued to the historic old town and wandered around. Lots of strange snacks like young marinated chickens, quail eggs, and flayed squid, along with ceramic items, scarves (likely not all silk), wooden combs and jewelry. Glad we skipped the tourist pass to get into various sites as it was hard to find these places and we never located the miniatures museum which is the only one I actually wanted to see. Picked up a few gift items and then headed out after about an hour to dry off.
On the way back to subway, we stopped at J’s Beer Fairy to warm up and grab a beer. You select your beer from one of the many fridges, pay, then grab a branded glass from the fridge and a bottle opener. It was a nice, relaxed setting.
After picking up a pork floss donut to munch on for the trip back to the hotel, I wanted to try Dahuchun, a well-reviewed dumpling place, for dinner before the show. The cashier lady basically ignored me and took several transactions ahead of me until I finally said “one” and thrust money at her. Ugh. Dumplings were just okay, Eric liked Yang’s better.
Still hungry, Eric grabbed a pastry at a local bakery and then we headed to the Nanjing shopping street by People’s Square to waste some time before the circus.
Shanghai Circus World was easy to find and very close to the subway stop, although with poor signage on which way to go once once you exited the subway station. Since we bought tickets through the hotel we had merely picked a price we wanted to pay but not the seats or section. No worry though because we were second row! Our seats were totally fine for viewing the show even though we were off to one side. The VIP section only had 4-6 people in it the whole time. We arrived about a half hour early to a nearly empty venue but the theater quickly filled in with busloads of tourists (including a chatty mom and daughter next to me) but we both really enjoyed the show.
Acrobats, bicycles, and motorbikes in a cage lead to lots of exclamations and clapping from the audience. The 90 minute show was touristy but fun and we were happy with what we paid ($56 each) for the experience.