day 8, shanghai

aaahh...it is so noisy outside my house! a group of girls all who have just finished their std 6 upsr exam was screaming their heads off playing with water balloons and water. i wanted to get a nap but had to cancel that plan with all the deafening shrieks!!

so continue with my china post instead. urggh....another shriek!!!

on this day, we decided to go to the outskirt of shanghai. hated the sky...it rained, rained and rained till evening on that day.

we went to sheshan national forest park which is about 35 km on the outskirt of shanghai. we took the metro again but from sheshan station, we had to take a cab to the park. there is a theme park here and i saw the roller-coaster track....impressive. but i pitied the theme park goers.....how many rides would be open in the rain??

the park is quite big but we went to the two attractions here which are the astronomical observatory and maria basilica....the first basilica in asia if i am not wrong. yup....you have to pay to enter. have forgotten how much we paid now.
a pagoda greets you as you finished walking up the steps from the entrance.

inside the observatory.....if i remember correctly, this is the first observatory in china and it has long history and remarkable records of all the astronomers who had done their research there. the museum has compiled thorough notes to inform the visitors of the development of astronomy study in china.

view from sheshan. some of the most expensive houses in shanghai are here. we saw bungalows dotted areas around the hills. such a misty day. this photo was taken at about 10-11am.
maria basilica. those stained glass is fake....the original one was burnt i think and they have pasted fake ones to make it attractive to tourists during this expo period. shanghai government is really leaving no stone unturn in providing the best image to tourists wherever they go. mass is still held here every sunday. and i think devotees make pilgrimage journey here once every year.

we checked the metro route after finished visiting the national park. still drizzling and the sky was really gloomy. dampened all the mood to go exploring.

so along the metro route, we found qibao (7 treasures), an ancient water town which is still preserved. there were quite some tourists there too. met a group from hk. you don't have to pay entrance fee to enter this place. it was really serene ambling along the river and the little streets here...but only if it was free of the crowd. we had to jostle here and there and everywhere with the crowd all holding umbrellas on the narrow street so it was not really comfortable.

we called it a day the earliest on this day. we reached the hotel at 7p.m. dad and uncle pek freshened up and took a cab to the railway station to get their tickets to the next destination. then they went back to fuzhou street to look for books while i alone went to check out the shops on nanjing road.
that was when i found that things in china was so expensive. zara shop was so crowded although there was no sale but mng was rather empty. why ah?? i thought mng had better collection this time around compared to zara's. i guess it is all in the branding. i did not come back empty handed....but i will leave all the shopping to another post.