Temples

Jing'an Temple

On Saturday, we went temple hopping. The first stop was at the beautiful Buddhist temple Jing'an which is about 2000 years old. It was ofcourse rennovated several times, the latest in 1990s, but there are several ancient artefacts and idols in the temple. The pagodas with beautiful bronze statues all over them looked ethereal especially against the backdrop of the city skyscrapers and malls.

A short taxi ride from Jing'an took us the Jade Buddha temple - although it didn't look as royal as the Jing'an temple, it had a very old world charm about it. We were lucky enough to get there at the worship time, without actually planning it, and got to listen to some very calming chants and hymns. We wanted to try out a tea house and was led to the tea house in the temple compound by a helpful official. But as we were entering it, a monk signalled to us to not go there and we realised soon why he did that. They were charging a bomb for the tea as well as tea drinking session. It was almost closing time, so we left the place. Outside the temple, we bought a jade Buddha pendant for me and our must buy souvnier of every trip - a fridge magnet with Shanghai written on it.

The reclining Buddha at the Jade Buddha Temple

After all the spiritual rejuvenation, we decided to indulge our material selves and headed to Nanjing Road. There were several stores selling knockoffs on this street as well, replicas of brands like Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger etc with slightly different names and probably a different orientation of their logos. We walked into what looked like an authentic mall of children's wear, but it was difficult to say if the wares were real or fake. Besides the shopowners seemed to quote outlandish prices and were willing to bargain. So we gave that a skip as well.

We were famished after all the walking around and decided to grab a bite at a chinese restaurant. The first two places we checked out had huge waiting time, but we were third time lucky and got a place straightaway at a slightly upscale restaurant called South Beauty. DH chose a couple dishes he liked when he went dining with his team and they were delicious although the eel dish was a tad too spicy for me.

A relaxing steam bath back at the hotel and the day had come to an end.