A Weekend in Shanghai

On Thursday night, we booked a room at the Etour hostel near People's Square subway station in Shanghai, then the next morning we headed to catch a train. We arrived around midday and after a quick rest, we set out. 

an old theatre near where we were staying

We spent the rest of the day on Fuzhou Road, essentially.

We went to a book store on that road not too far from People's Square. It had tons of art books and even had some posters of old paintings, which some of us bought as gifts. We stayed there for quite a while. 

I found a book by a really cool illustrator called Fanyu. I think it's her first book. 

We also went to a couple of stationery and art supply stores. One of them was a shop that sold mostly Japanese stationery. It was amazing. I wanted everything in there, but I only bought three pens. 

The other was a mall of art supplies. There were three floors of pens, paints, markers, paper, etc. It was pretty great. Also everything was really reasonably priced. It's called 上海文化商夏. I got some cool stuff there. 

After that, we went to the Shanghai Art Gallery and there was some really cool art there. My favorite was this collage called Singapore (new), which is the one on the right in the picture below.  

I also really liked this Chinese landscape painting that was made from the shadows of colored plastic! It was incredible. 

Some of it was a bit out there, but at least there was a view of the Bund. 

The other stuff in there was also pretty interesting. 

 That night we met some friends at a bar called the Captain's Bar, which is on the top floor of a hostel. The drinks weren't *too* expensive and it had a crazy good view of the Bund!

After that, we tried to catch a free club night because there was going to be a Japanese funk band called Osaka Monaurail playing, but they didn't let us in because the guys weren't wearing long pants. It was a lot fancier than we thought it would be. We ended up walking along the Bund a bit then going back to our hostel. 

The next morning, we had a relaxed morning then headed out to the M50 Art District, which reminds me a lot of Beijing's 798 art district.  

some of the art was just confusing

We had coffee in a place called Bandu.

Some of the exhibits were really cool. All of our favorite was Island 6. This one was a Chinese takeout box and when you walked past it, it would tell kind of inappropriate jokes related to Chinese food. It was pretty funny. 

The gallery and studio were also really cool. 

My other favorite one was this exhibit called Chang's World. His painting style was a mix of Western and Chinese.

I had a good time walking around the other galleries and mostly taking pictures of other people and my friends in the galleries. 

That evening we went to get Thai food, which was amazing. We stayed in our hostel that evening and just had a beer and played board games. 

The next morning, I enjoyed the sunny Sunday morning in the courtyard of the hostel. 

As the only Americans, Colin and I led the group to the only Taco Bell in China, which happened to be 15 minutes away on the subway. It was so nice to have sort-of-Mexican food. 

After that, we walked around the Oriental Pearl and the really tall buildings in that area.

After that, we took the train back to Hangzhou.

We had such a lovely weekend. It was a welcome break from Hangzhou, which can be quite boring. 

I am leaving in two days to go on my last trip in China. I will probably do my next blog update in about a month.