first impressions of the city known as Shanghai!

16/10/11 discovery of the Hongkou district

Upon arrival my brother Gert and his fiancee Mingzhu had to go to a wedding dresses fit for their upcoming fotoshoot on the 17th. They are getting married on the 11th of November in Belgium and this was a nice opportunity to shoot some wedding pictures. Tania and I left them behind and together we explored the neighbourhood, also known as the Hongkou district, which is the home of Mingzhu and her father.
 
17/10/11 downtown Shanghai

Today is the "big day" for my brother and his fiancee ... they left very early to shoot their wedding photo's, but me and Tania decided to sleep in. It is nice for once not to wake up early by an alarm clock!

After having breakfast we decided to see more of Shanghai and went straight to People's Square and it's most important street ... Nanjing Road. Some people may also call it shopping heaven, but I found some of the vendors which sell fake stuff kind of annoying. Luckely they knew when to stop selling their "valuables".

At the end of Nanjing you find the most photographed part of Shanghai called the Bund ... a nice"boulevard" next to the river Huangpu with an amazing view on the other side, the Pudong district.

From here we made a long walk all the way up to the "old town", crossing a nice little park with a bamboo forest. After having a rather quiet walk it was once again a real adaptation to be in an crowded place again. The old town with the Yu garden is THE tourist attraction of the day it seems.

We decided to skip the Yu garden for today and come back on a later date together with my brother and Mingzhu. Instead we go shopping in one of the many shops outside of the old town, which turns out to be a good idea since we both bought the things we really needed.

As it is getting later and later we head back to Nanjing Road through all sorts of streets ... and get a glimpse of the shopping street by night ... for me the ideal beginning of a holiday!