Pavillion at Guyi Garden, Nanxiang

Shanghai is famous for this little dumpling with thin skin and soup inside. Bite it and if still hot off the steamer, it guarantees a scalding where it hurts.

The most famous restaurant in shanghai that sells them by the bucketloads, figuratively speaking, is Nanxiang Restaurant over by that tourist hole, Yuyuan Garden right in the middle of the city. Its not too far from where I stay and on weekends, I sometimes take the walk over, and stand in the half and hour queue (if I’m lucky). Its not the best in Shanghai though and its quite obvious it’s famous because it’s famous, no more. Nanxiang Restaurant also starts to expand with branches overseas.

Shanghai Bus, encountered on the way looking for that bus that will take me to Nanxiang

So not to dwell too much in stories, I found out during a chat with a colleague that the xiao loong bao, what this tasty dumpling is called, was first invented in a town called Nanxiang. Just tens of kilometre from downtown Shanghai so close that a public bus (actually many from all points) runs there from the Shanghai railway station, so we found out after browsing the chinese languaged internet. So quickly this became my mission for the coming weekend.

Guyi Garden Pavillion from another angle

Based on a copied and pasted list of public bus that goes there on my phone, I went out looking for this place that strangely most of my colleagues have never been to. The bus from Jing-an temple metro stop doesn’t seem to exist. I’ve checked the locations of bus stops and list of buses that stops nearby at the metro station and couldn’t match the number. What I’m sure is, if there’s a bus that goes somewhere in Shanghai, its bound to stop near the Train Station.

After a long time searching, the bus I took was bus 517 at exit 6 of the Shanghai Train Station metro line 1. This is misleading because the bus stop is not exactly AT the train station. You have to make it to the north exit square and the follow signs pointing to bus 517 and this is a 20 minutes walk at least. At every junction look out for the signs that points to the direction of the bus stop for 517.

On the bus: This is funny. I use the Shanghai Transport card, aka the Jiaotong, and there is a conductor in the bus sitting next to the rear exit folding doors and has a console in front of him. This where he controls the pricing and has a comm system to talk to the driver. The price for the trip seems to be 4 RMB although I’m not too sure about it. Whatever it is, it’s not too expensive compared to the price of taxis.

Sunset at Guyi Garden

Guyi Garden: Now, in the bus you have to be quite careful where to stop. I have a GPS map of Shanghai on my Nokia E71 and managed to get a window seat all the way there. Was able to track my location all the way to a town called Nanxiang. Unfortunately, I have no idea where the central attraction is, but I thought that a lake with green gardens should signify something tourists would want to go to. Not true. The easiest way is to look out for a signboard above the road that says Guyi Garden, and it exists in English as well. Its ok if you missed the stop and realised it after you passed it as the next stop is just across the corner after turning left.

Guyi Garden

Guyi Garden

First thing I noticed was that Guyi Garden has a restaurant in front of the main entrance. This restaurant looked oldish, and from the menu, looks like THE place to come for the xiao loong bao. But since it was only 4pm, I decided to have a look at the garden. It is not free, as usual, and 12 RMB gets you in.

Guyi Garden

After the entrance to the park, the first thing that caught my eye was a big basket of the famous dumpling. It was starting to get quite cold here and sun is starting to set. I walked quickly around the park. There’s a lake with a zig-zag bridge and a pavillion, quite standard in most Chinese garden. The walk in the park was quite pleasant, but since it was getting dark I didn’t have too much time to remember all the sights. The park is medium in size, probably 1km square , maybe a little bigger since its area we’re talking about. The most interesting architecture in there was a pavillion that’s suppose remind the Shanghainese of the Japanese occupation and what’s special about it is that usually Chinese roofs have edges with accents of dragons, or mythical animals. This one has curled up fists. Looked like an ancient joke, but too bad I don’t have photographic proof as it was in the shodow of trees and I couldn’t get adequate exposure with the 2 film cameras I have loaded with ISO 125 and ISO 160 films respectively.

Guyi Garden

So by 5pm the sun was starting to set, and it was getting to low single digit Celcius, and it was time to go to the restaurant. Strangely, this park seems to be the confluence point of newly-weds, and the firecrackers attest to this. Even at the restaurant, there are many wedding limousines arriving and hurriedly leaving.

Guyi Garden

However, my attention was affixed by going for a basket of speciality steamed dumplings from the place that originally invented it (according to my news). Cheap, 15 RMB buys you a basket of 10. Cheaper than the one in Shanghai, but not by much. Since I wanted to go back to Shanghai before 7:30pm and drop the roll of Kodak 160VC I’m shooting today at the developers before they close, I decided to buy it to go. 10 dumplings and plenty of vinegar no it, I walked to the bus station diagonally across the road and past the traffic junction, savouring on a rather good set of dumplings, from the place that started it all. And it was good…

Dumpling Restaurant at Guyi Garden

Dumplings!!!

*end of post*

View from Sheshan (Nikon D300, 12-24mm f4)

Was planning to go to hangzhou this weekend but its impossible to get a train ticket nor hotel room next to the lake so sod it, this saturday will be a shanghai trip. And I went through my mind thinking where in shanghai I always wanted to hike to but never had the time,and Sheshan comes up.

Sheshan Basilica (Nikon D300, 12-24mm f4)

Sheshan is a place where it seems only people on company team building trip goes to and stay in one of the 5 star resorts. In fact that was the only time I went there and I did notice there is a metro line that goes there, not too bad. Did see a cathedral object top of a hill as well and a little wikipedia research tells me this is the only real hill in shanghai. 

Sheshan Basilica on top of the hill (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Lucky SHD100)

Ok I confess. The reason for the trek today is to test out my new configurations before my holiday in November. For one, updated my blogging phone from Nokia E61 to the new and very nice E71. The phone is a lot smaller and easier to carry but nothing is free, the keyboard is very small now. But the predictive text seems to be making up for it. My pack is also heavy as I have packed a D300 and Mamiya RZ67 and a new hiking tripod, the 1541T from gitzo. Plenty of heavy gears I can assure you!

Shanghai traffic (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

Ok first thing first. How to get to Sheshan? Grabbing metro line 1 to Xujiahui station and switching to line 9 west. Simple enough. And I seem to be the only guy in Shanghai walking with a backpack and shorts. Its autumn now and temperature is around low 20s but the sun is out in full force. Hence shorts and camouflaged boonie and a healthy dose of UVA sunblock. I now smell like perfumed sunblock lotion.

Ok. At Xujiahui right now and I can tell you there is no line 9 here. Looking at the map, line 9 now starts at an intersect to line 3/4. Xujiahui interchange is in the plans it seems but not yet, probably sometime in the future. Now going to shanghai indoor stadium and will switch to line 3/4. Get off then at Yishan road. And switch to line 9 and get off at Sheshan. phew! But apparently it is not that easy. Yishan road station to line 9 requires that I take a free shuttle bus to Guilin road station, about 1 station away. The connection has not been completed yet hence the bus. I’m at the Guilin road station now and it looks like this will bring me directly to Sheshan. We shall see.

Sheshan Metro Line 9 Station (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

At the shanghai sculpture park. Like any parks with any tacky sculptures in china, this one costs money to get in. Adult tickets cost 80 rmb but I don’t bother.

1432hrs: finally walked all the way from the metro station to the entrance of Sheshan. The cathedral is in full view from the entrance but looks like it will be a walk up the mountain or hill. A nice 30 minute walk up the hill at a minimum. They do charge for entrance fee, which like I have mentioned a lot of times seems to be a favourite pastime of the local government here in china. less blogging and more time spent moving. Check back here once I get to the top.

Sheshan Basilica Exterior (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

1517hrs: got to confess. Got up here some time ago. The church is small on the inside. Definitely not looking anywhere like a basilica like what the call it. Not even a mini basilica. Considering not many chinese are christians, its understandable there is a tv inside and a section condoned off for visitors to watch some catholic propaganda completed with the white guy with long hair and clean shaven. What you do have a lot of up this hill are wedding photographers. You can tell by their large reflectors. Although they don’t seem to be reflecting anything sometimes. Anyway, have not taken out my dslr and medium format yet. Nothing worth shooting yet. Did go into my second roll of film on the leica m3 though. First time with a Kodak 125PX.

Sheshan Basilica Interior (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

1548hrs: On my way down the hill when I saw the entrance to the observatory. Nah! Took a couple of photos of the view off the hill and its time to walk the steps down. There is a disuse cable car station with the cables dismantled but very clearly not hiding what it used to be. I guess I have seen my share of cable car stations to be able to tell. Its 4pm and the sun is starting to set here! Time to make it back to pudong for an evening photo shoot.

Group shoot outside Basilica (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

1414hrs: got into a taxi and instead of going to Sheshan station the driver recommended to go to Dongjing station instead since it was closer. And its true. Could have saved up to 30 minutes walking time to the hill by using this station in the future. Dongjing (no doesn’t spell like Tokyo unfortunately) is 9 stops from the start Guilin Road station and 1 after Sheshan.

Craptastic timing. Looks like there is no way I can get back to Shanghai in time for the twilight light show. Looks like I man have to settle for night shots with the Mamiya. Line 9 trains are not really that common. Must have been at least a 15 minutes wait for a train!

But one revelation about this place is the potential for landscape pictures with plenty of yellow flowers. Would have been a great place to come with a large format camera. I have not found a nice perch for that yet but I believe the potential is definitely there. Good reason to return to this place for sure.

Chairs (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Kodak 125PX)

Tried to grab the taxi straight to the ferry station in fuxing road but since it is already getting dark I will postpone this to tomorrow morning. Then this will be the end of today trip. Will be going back home now tired after walking a few km.