The Bird and Flower Market

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to Shanghai, but that all changed once we got to our new hostel, The Phoenix. It seems that the best way to manage your lodgings is to book in advance online. I know that travelers used to just enter a city and go from hostel to hostel, examining rooms and then choosing one, but I think times have changed and booking just slightly ahead is the way to go. Just a day or two before we left, I started looking online and chose The Phoenix. I use sites with traveler comments to see what has been recently posted, and then look at pictures, although those are sometimes deceiving. The Phoenix had been highly rated with about an 86% approval rating, landing it in the top 10. The pictures showed a clean looking room with twin beds and no concrete floor! I couldn’t quite tell about the bathroom, but I thought we would have to share again.


When we actually got to The Phoenix, we were first stunned by the street, which was lined with metal archways that were covered in silk lanterns and illuminated sculptures. It looked like a Chinese Mardi Gras. We made our way inside the hostel. The clerk on duty was the friendliest person I think I’ve ever met. Unfortunately, we had arrived too early for check-in, but he happily took our bags and told us to come back around 3 pm.


I had not prepared much of a list of things to do in Shanghai, so I was at a momentary loss of what to do. Finally, I ripped a page out of one of my travel guides. We were going to find the Bird and Flower Market. It sounded charming…I imagined a street full of birds in bamboo cages all singing sweetly. It sounded like something Kinsey would enjoy. I studied the map carefully and figured out that it wasn’t too far away. We could walk across the park to get there.


Unfortunately, Kinsey kept telling me how tired she was. We didn’t have a room for a rest, so I did the next best thing. I fed her. After getting some food inside, she perked up and we managed to get across Renmin Square. After a little wandering, we managed to find the right street. The street took a little jog and then we heard little cheeping sounds…but it wasn’t birds. It was crickets.

The first store on the street had a table set outside with rows and rows of tiny boxes. Each box had a live cricket inside. Some had larger katydids. A sign announced that each box was 10 yuan. Kinsey was puzzled. I guessed and told her they were lucky crickets for sale, relying on my sum total knowledge of Disney’s Mulan.

We continued down the street where we found table after table of crickets. Some were in cunning little cages made of wood or bamboo. Several stores had tanks of fish, orange and white koi and goldfish of all sizes, vats of plants for aquariums, empty tanks, and lots of fish paraphernalia. More tables of crickets. More fish. And then at the end of the street, we found turtles, big plastic tubs full of baby turtles. Most were about two to three inches in length, but there were all sizes, segregated by type and size. The turtles were in a frenzy to escape, and all of them were crawling towards the sides, crawling on top of each other, and ultimately falling to the bottom upside down, where they would right themselves and try again. Other plastic trays held big netted bags full of turtles. It was alternately fascinating and appalling.

We tried another little side street only to find a few more fish, crickets, and turtles, but no birds or flowers. I guess I should alert the guidebooks to rename it the Cricket, Fish, and Turtle Market. Somehow I doubt many people will find that of interest.

Back on the street, we got diverted by a mall and lunch.

Afterwards, I decided to try to find the Foreign Languages Bookshop. (I thought that was the actual name of the bookstore, but now I think Lonely Planet just identifies any bookstore with foreign titles by that name.) Using a map, I tried to direct us there by walking. Shanghai‘s subway, unlike Beijing’s, doesn’t seem to go near the tourist spots we wanted to visit, so we ended up walking vast distances. Anyway, we walked and walked, and eventually, I could not find any of the street names on my map. We turned this way and that, until I gave up and we started asking people for help. After a couple of tries, I found another tourist who was also lost. She looked at my map and told me we were nowhere near the bookstore. Apparently, I had gone in the opposite direction than I had intended! Instead, she told me we were near the Antiques Market on Dontai Road. What serendipity! This was a place I had wanted to go, but didn’t think I’d be able to find, as it seemed too far away! And there it was, two short streets away. So Kinsey and I spent the next two hours happily shopping and honing our bartering skills, which, I am sorry to say, are not that good. However, I set my mind to not being intimidated and bought myself a few bracelets and other trinkets. Kinsey also parted with some money, but we were both happy by the end of the day.

Even better, when we finally checked into our hostel, we discovered that compared to the Flowering House, the Phoenix seemed like the Ritz Carlton. Instead of concrete floors, we had plastic wood flooring. Unexpectedly, we had our own bathroom, indoors without bugs. (I had thought we might still be sharing the bathroom.) Best yet, there was an air conditioner, big windows, and a tv, although we never used it. Yes indeed. This was luxury, and we were going to get to enjoy it for four whole days.