This is already our last morning in China! We drove the bus into Shanghai and got out to walk down a street that looked a lot like a mix of the Hutong district in Beijing and Muslim Street in Xi’an, the street even had some street vendors cranking out the usual octopus on a stick. I was confused when we arrived at the Yu Garden at first because we came on to a bustling upscale shopping center, but it did have the beautiful architecture of a place with a name like Yu Garden.

The the guide led us to the actual garden, which was next to the shopping area but still somewhat incorporated into it. The Garden was beautiful, there was a mix of old trees and shrubbery along with water flowing into ponds filled with giant koi fish and turtles. I was so happy we had a guide with us because there was a lot of meaning behind everything included in the garden that I wouldn’t have picked up on had he not been there to explain. The path we walked on through the garden had its own beauty as well, the smooth rounded stones that composed it were all meticulously placed, sometimes forming hilly mosaic pieces, and the walls held intricate reliefs of representative moments of Chinese history. One in particular caught my eye, it was a relief of three figures interacting with each other, and each one represented one of the three ideologies considered formative to Chinese culture: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The path was periodically broken by beautiful old wooden bridges that took us across the ponds. In one of the enclosed areas of the garden the wall was lined with a long dragon sculpture that was super intricate, every scale had been etched in with great attention to detail. Despite being right next to the busy shopping area, ther Yu Garden was very quiet and serene, a testament to the skill of its creator. The Yu Garden was built by a man who wanted a place for his parents to stay and visit him, the word Yu actually means something along the lines of “respect for family.” Once we left the garden we were given free time to explore the shopping area and grab some food. There was every store imaginable in the complex, from traditional tea shops to fast food to boutiques with incredible merchandise. I checked out a store that had several life sized pop-culture figures in front and even more inside the store. We had over an hour in the area so me and a few other guys walked a little bit outside and we came across a small bamboo grove with several stray cats lounging in it. Beyond the grove we stopped in a park with a nice view of the skyline and we walked around there for a bit before it was time to head back. The Yu Garden was a great place to end our two weeks in China because the area didn’t feel like it was unique to Shanghai, I noticed elements from both of the other cities we visited while we were there, as well as the more traditional history of China.