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Shanghai 2025: All the icons
posted : Sunday, August 03, 2025
Day 2 and as promised, the rain came.
 Gloomy start Hotel breakfast courtesy of Boss Su’s Hyatt Globalist status again, we kind of took our own sweet time to prepare to go out, partially because we wanted to see if we can wait out the rain, but to no avail so we headed out eventually near noon. The plan for the day was supposed to be a day trip to Hangzhou. Actually back when this trip was planned as a solo trip, the day trips (there was also one to Suzhou) were supposed to be at the back end of the trip after the mandatory mid-point hotel switch. Those are weekdays, and Disneyland was added to the itinerary after KH came onboard and we figured that it would be better to go on a weekday with probably smaller crowd. So moved the Hangzhou day trip to the front end, I had a choice between Saturday and Sunday. But knowing that HZ agenda is mostly outdoorsy - think lakes, parks which there’s absolutely not much point in this weather. Plus the night before when I was doing route planning (checking trains to HZ) I got all tired and in the end decided to scratch it from the agenda altogether haha. So it’s a city sightseeing kinda day, though we had to do it in the rain. First stop - 武康路.  Didi dropped us in front of an ice cream shop and it looked good so that’s our first stop. Got a 茉莉奶白  I don’t quite understand why this is THE icon of this area, didn’t read up on the history. But 打卡打卡  This viral bakery was just around the corner and the rain got a bit heavier so in we go. No queue coz of the rain I guess? But man the variety is insane and we were very spoilt for choice.  Managed to snag a seat.  Drizzly day as we headed down the main street  Small alleys with interesting shops  Sometimes the rain ease up. Loved the tree lined street.  Not much inspiration to shop but there’s a need for coffee. And amongst all the cafes I ended up here  Sigh. At least it was good  Street photography Agenda for the evening and night was 城隍庙and 豫园, checked and realised that 城隍庙 closes early at 430pm, so gotta make a move sadly because I wouldn’t have minded spending another hour or two here though the persistent rain/drizzle was kind of annoying. And here is where the SH traffic really got into the way, because what was supposed to be a half an hour ride (which I thought was already slow) turned into almost a full hour because of random jams here and there. So we reached the area at about 4.15pm, thinking we had missed the entry, but surprise - it closes at 5pm instead. So we still got to go in.  Arriving at the old street  Camped inside the department store here for a bit to settle some big business  Into the temple, entrance fee via WeChat of course  Donations via QR codes too and you get to 放天灯 virtually  Entering from one of the entrances  Sheltered! Bought some souvenirs  One of the squares  Classic Chinese architecture  More street photography  南翔for their famous soup buns. Very overrated in my opinion  豫园 has transformed at night. And it’s glorious  Some light show going on  The light up honestly brought out an entirely different feel  One of the alleys with retro signboards and all  Spent quite some time here tasting their wines which were sweet and I quite like it but I also am not one to buy an entire bottle because I just don’t have the habit of drinking regularly (stares at the few bottles of wine beer soju in my fridge). KH bought a few though.  The man had been looking for these mega 串串s since the night before and finally got his hands on one  Posted a postcard to the one that couldn’t join us  Decided I need some 生煎包 to redeem the dinner earlier so got from this famous looking place. Turns out they do have quite a bit of history, and they were quite decent too  Ended the visit with BBT of the day. This is a 石斛茉莉香柠茶 Called it a night! |
