Day 95 Shanghai (day 3)

We finally make it to the Yuyuan Gardens located in the centre of the Old City and considered to be one of the most lavish and finest Chinese gardens in the region.

 It occupies an area of 5 acres, and is divided into six general areas laid out in the Suzhuo style, each area separated by "dragon walls" with undulating gray tiled ridges, each terminating in a dragon's head.
 We try to take the metro but find Line 10 closed when we reach our station, there are officials barring the way and they tell us the station and Line 10 is closed till further notice. We are a bit stumped and we are not alone, even the locals don't seem to know what is going on and there a noisy exchanges as people try to find out what has happened. We eventually manage to hail a taxi to take us the rest of the way. The driver does his best but we find the road gridlocked - there is traffic chaos, nothing is moving. A combination of his picture phrasebook, our Chinese/English dictionary and lot of pointing we gather that something more serious has happened - initially we suspect a road accident. Despite a series of turns, side roads and back doubles, we eventually walk the rest of the way.

 

It is only as we leave the Gardens and try to make our way back to the hotel via the adjacent Line 10 underground station that we find a gathered crowd, police cordons, the media and TV crews filming live that we find out that there has been a train collision just minutes before we tried to board this morning.  Thankfully there were no fatalities and as we slowly make our way across the city we realise we have had a lucky escape.

We take our minds off the days events with a show at Shanghai Circusworld - ERA -  a large, indoor modern circus that showcases performances. The performance targeted at travellers is ERA - Intersection of Time, a journey into the history of Shanghai with acrobatic acts and motorbikes.

 

 

 

It was utterly breathtaking, captivating and jaw droppingly good and we ooh and aah and applaud. Truly amazing stuff!