Yu Garden and Qing Fang Market

During the Golden Week a national holiday in China, back at the beginning of October Trent and I had plans to travel but we didn't make them soon enough because literally the entire country is on vacation so it is really difficult to get flights anywhere! So we decided to do some additional exploring in Shanghai which turned out to be very rewarding. We decided to spend one of the days to hunt for a craft supply store for me  made the mistake of wandering into Yu Yuan Gardens a gigantic tourist trap filled with Chinese people on Holiday. I imagined something with garden in the name to be peaceful and full of trees and flowers, maybe some koi ponds instead it is an area of markets and stalls full of junk in buildings made to look old. We literally could not move it was so crowded and every 5 steps someone was trying to sell us a bag or a watch. It was ridiculous.

However, on this same trip we had the pleasant surprise of finding an entire street with several huddles of Chinese men all circled up intently looking at something, so of course I had to know what it was. We went over and discovered they were betting on cricket fights. It was very amusing and interesting to watch, and I think when they turned around and saw a tall white girl watching/photographing intently they were equally amused with me.

We also went to a different fabric market way on the other side of the city in search of fabric for me to craft/sew with. The metro station was connected to another bird and flower market so we wandered through and looked at their wares. There were more interesting creatures and critters to be seen. I really love the bird and flower markets here, they are so visually stimulating and the people are always happy to see us.

The market we went to was humongous, they sold fabric for upholstery and drapes and the prices for cotton fabric were outstanding, it is a wholesale market so they actually supply tailors with fabric for making clothes but they were happy to sell me 1 meter sections of their beautiful fabrics. We wandered across the street from the fabric market and tried to find a sewing machine in this row of shops. There was a lot of ridiculousness going on outside and nothing to see inside. There were again, tons of people complete with three miserable girls dancing in front of an electronics store advertising something but based on their dance it was not readily apparent what.

We had to go on quite a long walk to try and find the sewing machine shops which offered a lot of interesting scenery. I also found a cat at the one sewing machine dealer who was open during the holiday week, it was really beautiful and tucked into a box but as I got closer it gave me quite a warning meow so I backed off.