Behind the Bund
My Yahoo Widget said it wasn't going to rain today so we went downtown for lunch and a walkabout. And it rained. But before it rained we had lunch at a very good Chinese vegetarian restaurant on Nanjing Street pedestrian mall. It's on the 8th floor of a hotel that's easy to overlook. Why is it that hidden restaurants always seem to be the best?
After stuffing ourselves with roasted peppers, kongpao "chicken", and fried vegetable rice we looked for a Lawsons convenience store where G-man reports finding some melonbread that he likes. I had recently gone into a Lawsons and, having gotten the name wrong, asked for "mango bread". The clerk said he'd never heard of mango bread.
We didn't find the Lawsons so S and G took off for home. I was going to take a self-guided walking tour from a book on Shanghai
Walks but soon after I set out from the esplanade on the Bund it started sprinkling. To further complicate my walk the historical bridge I was supposed to take over Suzhou Creek was in the process of being dismantled. I took a detour that led me beside the old British Consulate that has been closed for many years. The British had located their consulate at the confluence of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River in the mid-1800s. Now a huge Peninsula Hotel is being built next to the consulate's remains.
I followed South Suzhou Street around the bend to where the former British Rowing Club had been located. Now the space is occupied by a police station and the only remnant of the old building is one arched doorway. Across the street are the dilapidated remains of Shanghai's first Protestant church - the British Church. Turning left I went south on Yuanmingyuan Street and took some photos of the old Chinese Baptist Book building, the YMCA and the back of the old British consulate. It was a little difficult to see the buildings for all the tour buses parked all over the street and sidewalks. Chinese tour groups park their buses here and walk around to the Bund.
It started to rain at this point so I hopped in a taxi and will continue the walkabout another day.
After stuffing ourselves with roasted peppers, kongpao "chicken", and fried vegetable rice we looked for a Lawsons convenience store where G-man reports finding some melonbread that he likes. I had recently gone into a Lawsons and, having gotten the name wrong, asked for "mango bread". The clerk said he'd never heard of mango bread.We didn't find the Lawsons so S and G took off for home. I was going to take a self-guided walking tour from a book on Shanghai
Walks but soon after I set out from the esplanade on the Bund it started sprinkling. To further complicate my walk the historical bridge I was supposed to take over Suzhou Creek was in the process of being dismantled. I took a detour that led me beside the old British Consulate that has been closed for many years. The British had located their consulate at the confluence of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River in the mid-1800s. Now a huge Peninsula Hotel is being built next to the consulate's remains.I followed South Suzhou Street around the bend to where the former British Rowing Club had been located. Now the space is occupied by a police station and the only remnant of the old building is one arched doorway. Across the street are the dilapidated remains of Shanghai's first Protestant church - the British Church. Turning left I went south on Yuanmingyuan Street and took some photos of the old Chinese Baptist Book building, the YMCA and the back of the old British consulate. It was a little difficult to see the buildings for all the tour buses parked all over the street and sidewalks. Chinese tour groups park their buses here and walk around to the Bund.
It started to rain at this point so I hopped in a taxi and will continue the walkabout another day.
Labels: the new Peninsula Hotel
posted by Kevcham at 2:15 AM
3 Comments:
Rob Gifford wrote about this building in that book "China Road".
That's what I was going to write.
Ya snooze ya loose
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