Shanghai from under the umbrella: Part 1

With only five days left in Shanghai before Laura had to board her Vancouver-bound plane, we’ve had a lot to take in and not a lot of time to take it in in. (Grammar experimentation is exciting.) We got right to it and hit the pearl market, the fabric market, and the glasses market; we’ve been balancing the shopping with, of course, eating: dumplings, hotpot, and home-cooked stirfries and soup have been on the very full menu.

Yesterday, we went with Claire’s friends Eric and Allison to the fabric market, stopping along the way to admire the oodles of buttons for sale in hole-in-the-wall shops (see below for Button on buttons); at the market, Claire ordered a tailor-made hat while Laura agonized over a suitable cotton print for new kitchen curtains – and just happened to find the perfect wool skirt for those cold Clarenville winters. Everyone left happy, especially those of us who got to come home to make soup and watch episodes of Monk before indulging in copious amounts of Laura-imported chocolate.

Somebody in charge knew today was our last day in Shanghai, because it was raining all day – the clouds followed us all the way to the Bund, the city’s must-see destination. We took in the lower half of China’s tallest buildings, and amused ourselves with umbrella sightseeing: seriously, check that one out below. A spur-of-the-moment elevator ride in the Ritz-Carlton rounded out the afternoon. A note to prospective hotel lobby crashers: be confident when you ask directions to the washroom and act like you’re definitely visiting the penthouse when you step into the elevator. Even if you’re wearing MEC and your shopping bag comes from Carrefour.

So: Claire will be on her own tomorrow night and Laura will be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean with 400 other people, who are hopefully keeping their microbes to themselves. (One more bout of strep throat is needed not.) Another great holiday!


1. Laura testing the padded sidewalk near Claire’s apartment. Rating: 7/10 for bounce, 10/10 for capturing the moment
2. Rainy reflections along Nanjing Donglu, Shanghai’s most famous shopping street
3. Universities look the same all over the world; Claire in front of her classroom building at Donghua University
4. In the textiles neighbourhood: don’t mess with PMS security
5. Laura N. Button… or is it Laura and Buttons? (Ha, ha, ha.) Thousands of buttons nestle into shelves and drawers in button shops near the Shanghai fabric market