It has a few streets of most traditional form of Chinese art doing it right infront of your eyes like embroideries, Chinese stamp engraving, tranditional Chinese calligraphers writing your name (even in English), syrup painting, meaning making a drawing out of hot sugar syrups, you can eat it of course and also lot of places to buy traditional Chinese snacks like the dragon whiskers lolly etc. You could also buy traditional China, silk, jade and pearls there as well. Oh don't forget to bargin!!! it's not always the case but sometimes you could get goods 30% cheaper than the asking price!
If you're not used to all these traditional Chinese stuff, you could also easily find Starbucks, KFC and Häagen-Dazs just around the corner. Also don't be deceived by all those shops and restaurants, there is still a temple in this big traditional Chinese structure. Plan to spend at least 3 hours there, as there're lots eat & look at.
We have planed our lunch at the most famouse restaurant in the temple called Lv Bo Lang (绿波廊), when the former American president Bill Clinton visited Shanghai he also dined at this restaurant. The traditional way of ordering Shanghainese food in a restaurant is to start with cold dishes, they come in very small sizes, like entrée size or even smaller, so I would order a few of those, then you go on to the main hot dishes, keep in mind that the Shanghainese restaurants don't provide rice unless if you order (not like in those Chinese restaurants in our China Town), we actually order buns or pancakes instead.
If you're worried about language, staffs in most western style cafes and restaurants speak English, so if you need a hand with directions they're more than happy to asist, the restaurant we have dined in has English menu as they have served many foreign VIPs. If you're on the street and have the urgency of asking a question, I would suggest to find some one young and modern looking...as grannys won't be much help.
Hope you have liked my post, more Shanghai posts coming tomorrow...
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