Catshanghai

Tomorrow will be a fine winter’s day - cold, but sunny. Shanghai will be as busy as ever in this hectic buildup to Chinese New Year. This means a heaving city centre, bustling with in your face street vendors, honking taxis and overly enthusiastic weekend shoppers. This may all be wonderful and exciting in ideal circumstances, but after a week of 6am getups it is hardly relaxing. Something drastic is called for short of hopping on a train to the countryside. The challenge for this weekend is how to stay in the city without feeling like you have to share it all the time with 17 million other people. Where can you go for a bit of peace and fresh air amidst the noise and pollution?

Last weekend, we found the perfect location on metro line #2 in Pudong’s Century Park. You have to pay 10 RMB to get in, but it’s worth it. The park has a lake, lots of space, grassy lawns, some interesting landscaping and the sunshine made us feel happier than ever. The only drawback was the bitter windchill so we warmed up by hiring a quad bike and pedalling us fast as we could for over an hour, occasionally missing trees and pedestrians by milimetres. There are restaurants in Century Park, but most of them were closed so you should bring some sandwiches, fruit or wonton to keep yourself nourished. The best thing of all was that there were hardly any people.

I was not amused by the fact that kites, footballs and private bicycles are all forbidden from Century Park as if this space is merely an ornament and not a place to enjoy yourself. Chinese bureaucracy and parkie must surely be a marriage made in absurdity. We still had a great time, but we are cautious not to recommend it too much in case it gets too crowded for our next visit.