Anja Tufina

I guess everyone loves the Pudong skyline of Shanghai, but by getting inside the city’s Yuyuan market and gardens that gives a tourist a real feel of being in China. Spending 2 hours among little shops who sell gold, jade, antiques and crafts while surrounded by beautiful architecture was a blast. I read this is a very touristic place even though I counted just 5 non chinese people strolling through the streets, and thanks for these few non-chinese tourists that I managed to get the right directions to the tea house. This is my first trip where I totally felt lost in translation because the most of the touristic signs are missing or in chinese which added a sense of adventure to the whole trip.

I finally found the Tea House and had the blooming tea, the chinese tea made of dried tea leaves that are wrapped around dried flowers. When submersed in water the bundle expands slowly replicating the blooming of flowers. This was the souvenir everyone got back in Milan, because I wanted to share the enthusiasm I felt while the tea was getting prepped.

After the tea experience it was great getting lost in the streets, turning the corner and finding yourself in the narrow streets where the Shanghai life is in full frenzy. Elderly people doing what they do all over the worls, sitting on their porch watching life go by, another old lady cutting hair for money in the streets, small shops selling from water to metal scrap.