Shanghai: Beat the Heat

Another day, another museum! We are keeping the train rolling on inexpensive thrills with air conditioning. Today we visited the Shanghai Natural History Museum, "Fake" market, as well as the Yu Garden. Starting our day off at the Shanghai Natural History Museum turned out to be a great move. It seemed bit small in appearance from the outside but opened up to reveal a four story building chock-full of history.

Nick and I ended up spending several hours wandering the halls of this beautiful museum. The modern architecture and layout was truly a work of art in itself. On top of the facilities, the exhibits were exquisite! Easily the best history museum I've ever encountered. Below is a photo of Nick (left) and I (right) from the museum.

Next on the list was the "fake" market. Just as the title states, this is a market essentially filled with imitation goods for a cheap price. I was able to pick up a pair of "Oakley" polarized sunglasses for just a few dollars. We also ended up pulling the trigger on faux Under Armour shorts and T-shirts. Unfortunately the shorts did turn out to be rather tight and revealing so we lost out on that deal. Just for the fun of it, we chose to say yes to one of the many sketchy people saying that they were selling Rolex watches. After snaking through a slew of shops we made it to our alleged destination. Only then did we notice it was a luggage shop and had no watches on display.

Curious, we went inside where the sketchy watch man rapped a secret knock onto a locked door in the shop. After the knock ended, another man emerged from the depths. He swiftly made his way behind his desk, moved some luggage around to a smaller, secret sliding door. Once this was opened he pulled out a suitcase, unzipped it to find a plastic sleeve of supposed Rolex watches. After he gave us his elevator pitch about it being an automatic divers watch with a sapphire crystal etc etc, he asked how much we would pay. After an awkward few minutes of fake haggling, we were able to leave without purchasing. What an experience that was!

Onto the Yu Garden, a traditional Chinese "city" with a shopping market, a delightful koi pond and Chinese garden within. Here is the home of the famous traditional Chinese McDonald's. It was rather funny to see an American, fast-food company inside a traditional Chinese building but it was a site to see nonetheless!

More museums planned for our days here to beat the heat. Hopefully we find something worth mentioning in our last days here in Shanghai. Beijing is just around the corner so stay tuned!