Come early September it was time to return to China for my next classes, this time a week in each of Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. With no wider travel planned this visit, the month passed quickly and I was in Shanghai in what seemed no time at all for the final class, this one in the modern suburb of Songjiang on the city’s outskirts.
On our day off we visited Qibao Ancient Town, originally established a thousand years ago in the Song Dynasty, and now absorbed within the Shanghai metropolitan sprawl about 20 km south-west of the city centre. These days Qibao is a tourist haunt with the usual myriad of trinket, tea, clothing and food snack stalls. We later strolled through the nearby Long Hua Buddhist temple complex, its location marked by an equally impressive tall pagoda opposite the entrance.
But it wasn’t a pleasant day for walking in the heat and humidity, and after returning to the hotel we waited until after dark before venturing out onto the streets again for a return visit to the excellent cafe strip with great Chinese food at prices that would please the most tight-fisted Finance Director, a 30 minute walk away past a lakeside plaza on which hundreds of people were doing their nightly “ballroom” dancing.
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