Shanghai Day 2 - Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛禅寺) & Yu Yuan (豫园)

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23 Feb 2009

Woke up early today for breakfast at the hotel. Waited for a call that did not come. That means I am free for the day. Unrolling the tourist map of Shanghai, I noticed two temples: The Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛禅寺) and Long Hua Temple (龙华寺). I had heard that the Jade Buddhas came from Burma, so I decided to go take a look for myself, on foot.

Breakfast at the hotel


Slightly past Jing An Temple, this building looks like a cinema


Along the streets, the sky's gloomy like yesterday


This must be the Star Cruise local office


Finally after a long walk and a small detour past some construction, I arrived at the Jade Buddha Temple


Right opposite the front gate is a panel with stone patterns


Within the temple, it cost CNY 20 to get a ticket and it was drizzling again



The Four Heavenly Kings


Laughing Buddha


Within the Grand Hall, Three Golden Buddhas



The left and right of the Grand Hall is aligned with many gods


At the back of the Three Golden Buddhas was The Goddess of Mercy and an entire wall covered with statues


A marble reclining Buddha donated by Singapore

After walking around the ground level, I realised that I had not seen the Jade Buddha. Following some signs, it seems that the Jade Buddha was displayed on the second floor in a special chamber. This required an additional CNY 10. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed. It was a serene place with the Jade Buddha seated and depicted with South Asian facial features.

Having walked enough, I decided next to take a taxi to Yu Yuan (豫园), a garden and shopping district around it with buildings designed to resemble old chinese buildings. I was not too interested in the garden, but rather the food.

In the cab, avoiding the rain, the trip from the temple cost me CNY 21 -- cheap


Arrived at the edge of the Yu Yuan area


Some "Old Shanghai Street" aligned with old looking shops


Within the eating and shopping area, lined with themed buildings


This is what I am here for, lunch with the best Xiao Long Bao (小笼包)!


The take-out queue was really long and it doubled in length right after I joined it


You could either queue for take outs or head into the restaurant upstairs albeit at a higher price for each level you go up


These steaming little buns made hungry me really envious as it was cold today


An air vent acts as a steam exhaust


After 20 minutes I was finally getting closer


CNY 12 for 16 pieces, now that's really cheap


I have got my ticket now to collect it


Perfect, holding them in my left hand warms it up really well. Eat half and then switch hands so that you can warm the right.


Inside the kitchen, they are hard at work, even with this many hands, it took me 30-40 mins to get my Xiao Long Bao


Most people will stand beside this lake and finish their buns


There are lots of food everywhere too bad I was too full to try any more. Here's what looks like beef balls


Some deep fried little birds


Looks a little gross close-up


This is an entire snack square


Sugar glazed candy (冰糖葫芦), it's for children but these are huge


Tang Bao (汤包 - soup bun)

It seemed to be getting colder so I decided to hide in Starbucks to warm my fingers. The service is great, with the staff able to speak basic conversational English, much better than some other supposedly English speaking countries that hire foreign staff without a clue of the language.

Ahhhhh...


The entrance to Yu Yuan itself, I decided to give it a miss, it cost a fee to enter


A traditional show. Seems like a slide show where the performer in the hat will pull levers, clang cymbals and recite a story


Leaving Yu Yuan

Still full from the 16 Xiao Long Baos, I decided to try walking to Xin Tian Di (新天地), a place where some historic buildings now houses pubs, bars and restaurants. It is also the site of the first First Conference of the Communist Party of China.

View the next post in the series here.
Return to the trip index here.

Shanghai Day 1 - Nanjing Road to The Bund

Shanghai Trip Index

Day 1: Nanjing Road to The Bund
Day 2: Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛禅寺) & Yu Yuan (豫园)
Day 2: Xin Tian Di (新天地) & Pudong Along the Huangpu River
Day 3: Longhua Temple (龙华寺) & French Concession Area
Day 4: Shanghai Museum

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This is the first post in a series of posts about a four day trip to Shanghai.

22 Feb 2009

This is the first time in 14 years that I am visiting China. This time however, I am supposed to be there for some research collaboration but ended up with more free time on my hands than I expected. Shanghai is nice modern city. Unfortunately for me, that means less things to see. I woke up early in the morning to catch a 7:30am flight to Pudong International Airport. Thankfully, the meal on board came reasonably quick as I had nothing since awakening.

Branch, some omelette, sausage, bread, coffee and white wine


Touched down at about noon and I immediately walked towards the first highlight -- the Maglev


Off I go, everything outside flashed past, it is really fast and most turns are heavily banked


430km/h, almost half the speed of the plane I just left


Arrived at Longyang Road station, 30km in 7 mins


Right next to the Maglev station is the Longyang Road (龙阳路) metro station, line 2 (green). There are some 9 metro lines and more seem to be in the works


Off I was to Jing'an Temple (静安寺) station from which I will walk to my hotel. The metro is excellent, with announcements in English and Mandarin.


Jing'an Temple, right above the metro station

Arrived at Shanghai Hotel, not a very creative name but a comfortable place. The rest of the day passed with a quick dinner meeting with some of the doctors that I am supposed to meet. It wasn't raining before, but it is now, and it would be like this for the next 4 days. Talk about bad luck. It was pretty cool though, at sub-10 degree celsius. After dinner, I decided to take the metro to the People's Square and walk down Nanjing East Road, one of the more famous major shopping streets.

Back to Jing'an Temple station at night. There's actually a shopping complex next to it. In fact, there are shopping complexes everywhere.


Arrived at People's Square (人民广场), a "New World" shopping complex is right next to it


Walking down the brightly lit street with an umbrella in hand and a camera


Hitch a ride on one of these for CNY 2 to the other end of the street


One of the many neo-classical buildings in Shanghai


After a long walk through the shopping district and beyond, I finally arrived at The Bund (Wai Tan-外滩). Peering across the Huangpu River, the iconic skyline of the rather new Pudong financial district was shrouded in clouds.


The neo-classical buildings that constitutes The Bund. The winds were strong making it hard to balance the camera with a turbulent umbrella


The Bund stretches for a distance and along it are many locations where one can embark on a river cruise.



Some statues that I found rather strange on my way back

Back to the hotel. My feet were tired after the long walk. Shanghai feels generally safe except that some people (probably from outside the city) might try to swindle you, some touting, and the usual possibility of pick pockets. The air is slightly polluted though. Sadly, the people here seem to have a bad habit of spitting on the pavements everywhere. In a city of some 25 million people, the metro is well planned and a very efficient way to get around. After marking out a few other places of interest on the map I obtained from the hotel reception, I drifted off into some much needed sleep.

Read the next related post here.