Today was to be the day for travel to the nearby ancient town Suzhou… but alas, we were thwarted! Though there are a reported 60 train trips available between the two cities, we couldn’t get a train for several hours when we showed up at 10am to purchase tickets. Whether that was due to actual busyness or poor communication we’ll never fully know. On a side note, the main Shanghai Railway station was quite confusing, as you have to cross the street to get to the ticket counter and you can’t enter the main station without a ticket. At least we learned that English speaking agents are identified by a small sign in the upper right corner of their ticket window.
Instead, we wandered over to the M50 Art Center area. This space is a colorful mix of galleries, workspaces, and cafes. Very chill on a Saturday morning save for the horde of teenagers on what seemed like a scavenger hunt. While there was some street art, it was nothing too special. We did, however, find a nice pottery gallery where we found a vase for ourselves and a few other pieces for gifts. Our favorite spot was the Island 6 gallery, with lots of LED ‘paintings’ and other interesting art.
We stopped by the hotel briefly to drop off our pottery, then traveled to the Jing’an Sculpture park near the Natural History Museum. Lots of families were enjoying the nice weather in this park. While we were here the fountain turned on, surprising everyone with several cool patterns. Amongst our other favorites were the deer with butterfly antlers and the metal hands sculpture, “Sisters.”
On a friend’s recommendation, we tried Vegetarian Lifestyle for lunch. The ‘short ribs’ were great but the Kung Pao ‘chicken’ was just OK (the texture was spot on but the flavor was very one-dimensional). Leandra’s dumplings with mushroom and other veg were also just OK, a bit bland, and the dipping sauce that came with didn’t add much to the party. Service was incredibly slow with our waitress disappearing for long stretches. Pricey for what you get, I don’t think we would return.
We had some daylight left, so we hopped on the subway to the Pudong side for views of the Pearl TV tower and other downtown buildings up close via the circular pedestrian walkway.
Thinking a glass (or two) of wine would be nice, we jumped back on the metro (thank goodness for three-day unlimited metro cards) to the Jing’an Temple area, which was all messed up with construction. We arrived at Dr. Wine after Google said they would be open, but there was no one inside and the place was very dim. Disappointed, we started searching for other options when a man walked past us into the restaurant… they were open, just really quiet! With the choice of any seat, we grabbed a cozy couch I ordered a Nelson, NZ Chardonnay, then a Sav Blanc from the same region. Leandra had a rosé and then a South African pinotage, and we split a dried fruit and mixed nuts snack. Several groups came in for dinner and were seated upstairs so the downstairs lounge remained relaxed and uncrowded for a Saturday night.
