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It has been a year since I left Shanghai and I still haven't written about all my adventures there.
This is a post I have been procrastinating on for a while, and it is about the time I was interning in Shanghai with CRCC Asia and then I, and some other interns, decided to go on a day trip to Qibao.
Qibao is a town in Shanghai in the district of Minhang. Qibao is a known water town with two broad waterways between their houses and gardens that run through the town center. The town is known for its Temple, The Shadow Play Hall, Calligraphy and craft stores, snack streets, restaurants, stalls and teahouses.
I can't quite remember what spurred on this trip to Qibao. I believe we all wanted to make some valuable memories whilst in Shanghai, and we wanted to travel around, so some of us interns decided to get on the metro one weekend and off we went.
When we got off the Metro Line 9 it took us around ten minutes to actually get into the Ancient Town and straight away over the bridge I could see this water way/ wide river and across from it their famous temple and some homes.
According to Travel China Guide Qibao is the only ancient town forming part of greater Shanghai and has a history spanning over a thousand years.
The town was built during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) and became a prosperous business center during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911).
Qibao is filled with stunning cultural architecture. Its Temple dates back to the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States (907-960). While it was renovated and extended during the Ming Dynasty, the Temple is highly respected by the locals. It is also claimed that the temple contains the seven treasures.
Going deeper into the actual Town we found the snack streets and various alleys filled with stalls selling all kinds of strange to delicious foods and gifts. The area was used to tourism and I saw many foreigners like us walking around amongst the locals.
When I say strange foods they really did sell some really out there snacks such as fried insects. They had fried crickets, fried Tarantulas, and fried scorpions. You would never see food like this in Britain so of course I and many of the other interns decided to taste these fried insects.
I only had the guts to try a fried cricket, which kind of just tasted like an oily crisp.
Two interns I'll name them D and M, decided to try a Tarantula.
One of my Chinese friends told me that usually those fried insect stalls are tourist traps and not many locals actually eat that stuff, but it was pretty fun trying it out.
Tucked away in a small corner we found a calligraphy shop/Zither store. In their garden they had a large tree filled with ribbons. We were told it was wishing tree and that if we put our goals on a ribbon and tied it to the tree it was believed to come true. I bought a ribbon and tied up my wishes.
It was an overall Beautiful city, with a welcoming atmosphere, lots of ancient Chinese culture and I had a great time spending the day there with the other CRCC Interns.
If you're in Shanghai don't just stay in the main city, I definitely advise travelling a little to the various districts within Shanghai.
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