Yuyuan Gardens and Bazarre

It's been a very busy week!!!  We are both shattered, and it starts all over again tomorrow!

The business started on Monday for me.  My friend from Primary school is an air hostess for BA, and she was in Shanghai for a day, so I went into town to meet her, and one of her BA pals.  We had a wander around theYuyuan bazaar, which was so fabulous, Matt and I went there on Saturday (photos below...).  We ended up walking a long way - to the Bund to see the fabulous skyline at night.  We got the ferry across and walked up to the Pearl tower.  We ended up in a little Chinese restaurant, where the menus were all in Chinese.  No English!  We pointed at a picture, and then seemed to be told that we had to choose 2 things to go in it.  We literally closed our eyes and pointed.  I managed to find a picture of rice on my phone.  What we got was a huge sharing bowl of food, with delicious lotus fruit and been shoots.  But it definitely WASN'T chicken!!! Not sure at all what it was - my bet is either frog, or very small bird!  It was lovey to catch up anyway.  We hadn't seen each other for 6 years!

On Tuesday, I went to Yoga at work, which was fun, and Matt went to watch a football match.  Wednesday, we had our college roadshow, which was our International leadership team talking to us for 2 hours about how brilliant the school is, and the upcoming projects this year.  It was interesting, but quite intense, and we didn't get home until after 6!  On Thursday, Matt had a meet the teacher event, and he has another one tomorrow. Friday we went to the pub for one after work, but were so tired, that we didn't stay long.  Just for a few games of table football.

And that's just the evenings!  The school days here go so quickly.  Some of my children were doing testing this week, and for the others, lessons were in full swing.  There was some illness in year 4 this week, so a few of mine were off sick, but hopefully the weekend will have sorted that out for them.  I guess that's just typical of the start of the year.  Everyone gets sick.

Yesterday, Matt and I had a fabulous day out being tourists in the city.  We went to the incredible Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar.  The bazaar is huge, and very very busy.  The buildings all look like mock ancient Chinese architecture, and the shops are all tiny and full of tacky goods and clothes and touristy bits and pieces.  There are also some very expensive jewelry stores here.  The food is fantastic, and the smells range from the sublime to the very peculiar.  We found lunch in a canteen style place, where you go around to the different booths, pick up all the dishes you want, then pay at the desk, before going to find a seat with your tray.  We had veggie spring rolls, pork steamed buns, and crab meat soup, served in a giant dumpling, that you drank through a straw! Delicious!  Desert was a waffle cone, with strawberry soy bean ice cream, sprinkles, chocolate sauce, churros and chocolate chunks.  It looked better than it tasted, but was still nice.

We decided to pay £3 each to go into the Yuyuan gardens, right in the centre of the bazaar, hoping that there would be less people there.  It was a bit quieter, which was nice, and the gardens were beautiful.  Lots of pagodas, rockeries and ponds, with gigantic fish (at least 2 feet long, some were even bigger).  It was lovely meandering along the curving pathways (evil spirits can't turn corners, so paths are always winding in China).

When we came out of the gardens, we decided to go for a beer, but when we got in there, we decided instead to try a jasmine tea.  It was the most refreshing, delicious drink I've ever had!  Subtly floral, and just so refreshing.  We got 2 free hot water refils, so ended up in the cafe for an hour and a half!  It was the first time we had just stopped, and taken stock of things.  We had a good catch up and a chat about school, and really decompressed.  It was delightful.  

We decided to walk to a Western chain restaurant called the Blue Frog, which was about 1 km away.  We walked down this fabulous, very local road, and bought another piece of artwork - another embroidery, this time with koi on it.  The restaurant was in the 'Shanghai Times Square', which was very modern and flashy, very different to the bazaar that we had been in all day.

After dinner, we headed to a bar called Cottons, in the Puxi area of the city (the French area). It was a friend's birthday, and we had a lovely evening, socializing with a new group of people.

Today, Matt went out early to play cricket with the school team (they lost unfortunately - it was a semi final game), and I stayed in to write my final essay for my TEFL course.  We have had a fairly lazy afternoon, as Matt caught a bit too much sun and hasn't felt well.  We will watch the F1 later on and get an early night.  It's been a busy, but a fun week too!