Thursday, October 29, 2009

The End of Nine

A while back Jason & I decided to take our nearest Metro line to it's end. We'd read that there was both a beautiful mosque and temple there and we were up for seeing if we could really get away from Shanghai. Our train ran above ground and we got to see fields, actual open places, along the way. It was incredibly refreshing!

The city at the end of line 9, Songjiang, was definitely not a stop for many tourists ... we were the only non-Chinese around and drew many, many stares from the locals which we really didn't mind. Starring doesn't seem to be rude here...at all.




















































A young, Chinese university student saw us looking at the temple and immediately began practicing his english on us. His was quite good and he was very happy to tell us all about the temple and this "far-away" city we were visiting. He insisted on taking our photo.





















We arrived at the entrance to the mosque to find that it had already closed for the day ... this is the price you pay when you start an adventure at 2 pm and live in China where all attractions close for the day by 4:30 or 5:00.


















We arrived at the Drunken Poets Garden to find it also closed. Disappointing.
Until, the university student we had met early happened to be going past, acted as a translator for us and asked the entrance guard if we could take a peek for 5 minutes...he agreed and our new friend accompanied us practicing his english.


































































Some street/alley views as the sun went down on the city .... we see many streets similar to the last one and my heart always hurts a little at how sad they look.













1 comment:

Molly W. said...

I love how you 2 always take advantage of every tourist opportunity!