French Concession

Kelly and I carried our serious tourism mode to Shanghai, hitting the ground running from the moment we landed. We stayed in an area of Shanghai called the French Concession. It’s a really cute, downtown area of the city, with lot of shopping boutiques, parks, coffee shops and restaurants. We checked in around 11 am and went walking around our area. Although there are tons of restaurants in the area, we kept turning the wrong corners and didn’t find a place to eat until 1 pm (when I was moments away from caving and getting McDonalds.)


Traveler’s Note: Look up at least one restaurant/street name with restaurants in the area BEFORE arriving at lunchtime.

We managed the subway, which is easy enough to navigate once you can figure out how to get tickets. They use ¥1 coins a lot in Shanghai, which is shunned in Beijing. I kicked myself, thinking of the giant jar of coins in my apartment as I walked away from machine after machine with masking tape over the bill-insert slot.

At one point I broke down and went to a window asking for a ¥3 card. The woman told me I had to wait in a different line down the hall because she only had ¥4 cards. When I told her I didn’t mind and would take 2 she looked at me like I was crazy. I hate being an American stereotype/money waster, but I’ll take it over trying to find random windows and waiting in two lines just to save 35 cents.