Well. Another day in Shanghai done. We didn't get up early enough to go to the water town so instead we stayed around the city. First stop of the day was breakfast.

Around the corner from our hostel we found a bakery so we bought some things there and then walked down to Starbucks to buy a coffee. We sat and ate and drank.

From there we walked about 2km, maybe more, to the Yu Garden. We had taken a picture of a map that was at the hostel on how to get there but it wasn't heaps accurate and it took a while to actually find the garden. We got stopped along the way by a Chinese couple as well that asked Shannon to take a photo of them on their phone. And then the girl started yabbering on about things and asking us questions and just not stopping. Then finally she asked if we'd like to join them at a tea ceremony they are going to because the gardens are really packed right now. We quickly made our getaway saying that we were meeting some people from the hostel.

From there we had to navigate through a market place to get into the garden. There is a teahouse and zig zag bridge leading up to the entrance and luckily I had read something around that so we knew we had to cross the bridge.

The garden was actually very lovely. The Chinese gardens are quite different to the Japanese gardens. They are very much more packed in and there aren't many open green spaces like Japanese gardens seem to have. Also quite structure focused rather than plant focused. It was very nice though. And actually quite big. It wasn't as crowded in there as out in the marketplace either so it was almost peaceful.

When we left the garden we found the subway and tried to get closer to People's Square. We stopped off at Nanjing Road station and had lunch at CoCo Ichiban (Shannon was most delighted to find that it has spread to China).

We walked maybe another 2km to get to People's Square and from here found the Shanghai Museum. We we in there for the afternoon and it was great. It's a really big museum and it's free of charge. We only got to explore two floors before closing time so we'll probably attempt to get back there later.

We went back to the hostel afterwards and had a bit of a rest. We weren't too sure what to do for dinner but were tossing up between the restaurant downstairs and a place next door. When we went downstairs the restaurant was completely full. So we did a lap of the block and then decided to try the place next door.

We had seen people eating there from our walks past previously and saw that it was a place where you ordered your meats and vegetables and then dipped them into a central hotpot to cook. We picked some beef, spinach, mushrooms, meatballs and egg dumplings from the menu and then the guy brought in a hotpot full of water and placed it in front of us. It had a few herbs and spices in there but wasn't particularly fragrant. When our food arrived we started tossing things in. It was an okay meal. Nothing too flash and honestly a bit bland. Maybe we ordered badly? But yeah. We are both glad we tried it but won't be going back again.

We are about to watch a movie on the Surface and then we'll be going to bed in the hopes of getting up in time to go to the water village.