About Shanghai

  There are a few things I really like about Shanghai on our recent trip. Normally work trips to Shanghai are an in-and-out affair. But this time, we combined it with a weekend since both G and I were coincidentally there the same week for work.  

So my love for Chinese calligraphy and painting combined with a dress into wearable art. Here beautiful lotuses handpainted on a charcoal grey linen dress, the cut is simple and doesn't need much more when you have art. Oh yes and that's Snowy peeking out, he is my usual travel companion because he is small, cute and compact. He's not too pleased to be seen in a dress though...

 
 The little individual shops in Shanghai are a delight. As I always say, a mall is a mall is a mall. No matter where you go. Hence I try to avoid malls and hit the little individual shops. This was a Chinese teahouse on an old Shanghainese street. We were slghtly doubtful that it was actually a teahouse because it did appear too funky and modernised and (especially because) it had that capitvating mural of dollies in cheongsams.

 Architecture in Shanghai is an amazing affair. Taller, higher, shinier! The modern buildings are pretty awesome but the old Shanghainese buildings are as interesting if not more. I have walked down the Bund admiring the beautiful colonial buildings, and stopped to read every plaque affixed, telling its history. But this was my first time to the French Concession area which boasts also of the largest concentration of Art Deco buildings. Lovely.

 Cool little bars and cafes on this hip little street we tried so hard to find, and were almost giving up after much "discussion". Yong Kang Road is where all the white people congregate. On that street, you can almost believe you aren't in China. This little bar, with its vintage interior and very clever use of repurposed, upcycled egg cartons for papering over the ceiling for acoustics and aethestics, vintage luggages propping up the bar, definitely won us over easily.

 A slice of local life, unpretentious, every day living is always interesting to the outsider looking in, even for a brief moment. Here, residents set up little folding tables and chairs and pass time playing a game of Chinese chess. Others sit or stand around observing, as with this man probably mulling over a move. You see sights like middle-aged men with their singlets rolled up above their bellies sitting around in easy chairs on the pavement outside their houses. I think that is their strategy for keeping cool. Isn't this fun?

Finally, we close with a dress since we started with a dress. Shanghainese tailors are renowned for their skills. The fabric market is another wonderful place to spend many hours, wandering around, fingering beautiful fabrics, flipping through design books, talking to the shopkeepers and tailors. For the price of an off-the-rack shirt or dress at home, you can get gorgeous, tailored outfits. You just need to ensure you have enough time to try, give clear instructions, check the finished outfit, wait for revisions and then you will be the best-dressed person amongst your friends when you get home.

Shanghai - we will definitely be back for another leisurely trip.