Rockeries, 1221, and Nanjing Liu

Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/krfraser5/YuYuanGardens

Day three brought to the famous Yu Yuan Gardens, a short drive through the Fuxing Tunnel and just on the other side of the Nanpu river.  Again we went early to avoid the crowds.  Lesson 4: In a city of 20 million, you cannot avoid the crowds.  Not having been there before we were expecting to arrive at the magnificent gate of a fantastic temple.  Instead we found ourselves dropped off in the middle of a very crowded market with traditional Chinese architecture.  Very cool, yet very crowded and where were the gardens?   We double/triple checked with Mr. He that we were in the right place and he confirmed we were.  Okay...let's go.  We went in and wandered about, arriving first at the Taoist temple that happened to be in the same location.  We got our fill of incense and large gold statues and moved on in search of the gardens.  We found them a few minutes and hundreds of people later.  It ended up being a nice sanctuary as the cover charge, while not much to us, was enough to scare away many of the locals.  The Yu Yuan gardens were built in the 1500's during the Ming Dynasty.  The gardens are famous for the large rockeries, which you can see in the pictures and I will leave the pictures to define a rockery.  After gazing at many a rockery and the beautiful scenery, we ventured back out of the gardens into the crowd. 

Deciding this was a good place to pick up some souvenirs we wandered in and out of the shops.  Dave and Ayumi got to witness first hand some aggressive bargaining, which is fun but can be exhausting...more on bargaining on Day 5.  Tanner even took his first shot at bargaining in purchasing a chess set.  I had to give him a small course correction, which the shop keeper did not appreciate, but his 80 RMB deal got admiration from another shopkeeper we ran into later who asked how much we paid.  Good job, Tanner!

The most interesting part of the day occurred in the local restaurant famous for its western cuisine...McDonalds (hey, we were desperate).  Near the end of meal a beggar came up, one coin in palm to show what is to be given.  We ignored him as everyone does but he was very persistent.  As we talked around him, he began reaching for Amanda's coke.  We all just stared, wondering should we grab the coke, smack his hand, say no, what?  Well he actually got close enough and took the coke.  Well...that was one bold move we had never seen before.  We watched him leave, take the lid off and begin drinking it.  Well  he certainly needed it more that we did.  Amanda was the most surprised and the most thirsty as a result.

Later in the day, the Ayi stayed late to watch the kids while we drove to back to the other side of the river to enjoy some adults only time.  We went to a Chinese restaurant called 1221, which is the address of the street it is on...very creative.  This was another double check with the driver moment as we were dropped off in an shady looking alley with no obvious restaurant doors, just a couple of large dark heavy iron doors with no markings.  Well we pushed on one and guess what?  There was a very nice restaurant inside!  We discovered quickly what the restaurant is famous for as they poured the water for our tea from a 4 foot long metallic container with a circular motion that created a dramatic effect in the tea cup and left you wondering when it was going to start landing in your lap.  Scary, yet very cool.  The rest of the meal was far less dramatic, but very good.  Again we proved that we cannot order too much food. 

After dinner we finished the evening on East Nanjing Rd., a shopping area that feels much like Times Square in NYC with many lights and lots of people.  We walked the street and were offered many good deals on Rolexes and purses and then found our destination.  Pearl City.  Of course the women loved this spot, the guys not so much, but you cannot leave China without getting some very reasonably priced jewelry...and Ayumi did not.  Thanks Dave!  The evening was finished off with a scoop of great ice-cream at a nearby Haagen-Dazs.  A long but very enjoyable day 3.