Yu Garden at night

Young Scott and I took another shopping trip to the Yuyuan Garden Bazaar for our last (?) batch of souvenirs. As usual, we took the metro to Shanghai, but this time we decided to walk from the metro stop to the Yu Garden. Along the way, we walked through the old city. It was really interesting to see, hear, and smell this lifestyle. Since it was approaching dusk, we saw people making and preparing their dinners. Makes me long for all of the modern conveniences of home. Also interesting, were the amount of people, especially older folks, walking around outside in their pajamas. We thought that this was because we were walking among their "yards" but we later realized that many locals were also wearing their pajamas walking through the Yu Garden, a place typically filled with more tourists than locals.

At the Yu Garden we did the usual shopping for silk, pearls, and other Chinese memorabilia. We shopped and used all of our powers of negotiation to get the best bargains. We were hungry and decided to look for something for dinner. I don't think either of us were up for a sit-down dinner where we would have to negotiate the menu, so we decided to get some dumplings. I remember reading in one of the guidebooks that the best dumplings are often found at the shops with the longest queue. We did just that, and were not disappointed. This shop served only dumplings -- nothing to order, just put down 12 RMB (about $1.75) for an order of 16 dumplings, and walk away with a bowl fresh out of the steamer. They apparently made about 40 batches (16 dumplings each) at a time, which took about 15-20 minutes per batch to steam. We topped it off with a satisfying Dairy Queen Blizzard, and were very happy about our choice for dinner. A long walk back to the metro, and back to the campus topped off a enjoyable (but very tiring) day.