Morning in the Shanghai

We plan to see Jade Buddha and to visit Yuyang Gardens. Plenty of photo opportunities are waiting ahead, only if the sky was blue.

Jade Buddha Temple

Who would guess that nice Buddhist temple like Jade Buddha Temple is in the middle of city. When we stepped off the bus we were on normal street with shops, traffic light, cars, bicycles and everything. But behind the corner - the temple.

We came here to see famous Jade Buddha sculptures (sitting and reclining). They both are wonderful. It is pity we could not take pictures, but you can google it up (but most photos I have found had bad colour balance).

Rest of Temple is OK, but we have seen so many of them before.

Yuyuan area

Before we went to Gardens we visited (probably mandatory) tea room. While still in bus Heidi and Rich told us a few things we should be aware of. For example pickpockets are very good in this area so we were encouraged to keep backpacks (if we need them) in front of us. Heidi with serious face told us We cannot guarantee pickpockets. Rich started to laugh No, we cannot guarantee them. They are not in our program :-)

With this information we headed out to overcrowded streets.After a few turns we came to tea room. It was on the first floor. We sat around the table with prepared tea flasks, cups and all that cannot be missing for tea ceremony.

It was very interesting, how complicated it was. I still don't understand why so much of tea needs to be spilled out. I guess the visit paid off for them, because we ended up buying 6 doses of different tea :-)

Refreshed with tea we were back to streets. All others went to lunch. Zuzka and me decided not to waste time and look around the place.

We went into crowd and competed with other tourists in getting into good spot to take a photo. An interesting sport...

After some time I realized I am only member of the crowd with the backpack on my back. Everybody else had their in front of them or they were without it. Immediately I imagined long row of pickpockets queuing behind me. Scary. So I had moved it to front with resolution I will not be ignorant of good pieces of advice next time. Fortunately the pickpockets were lazy on that day. Maybe that heat...

That's the place with good Spring Rolls.

Old and new
    

Yuyuan Gardens

After we met again at the defined place we went to Yuyuan Gardens. It was amazing place, with water, rocks, houses and everything Feng Shui asks for, but we did not have enough time to enjoy it thoroughly or to take photos of each other. Plus that weather... If I was in Shanghai again I would probably want to see it again (with better light conditions of course).

I really do not see the point of those ugly chairs.