Chinese New Year at Jing’an Temple

Day two of Chinese New Year started with a search for open restaurants for breakfast. We found KFC of course.

Then made our way down to Jing’an Temple. It is a beautiful temple hidden in the middle of the business district.

There were many people praying and lighting incense sticks, but there weren’t as many people as there would be that evening. I people watched for a while and enjoyed walking through the different hallways around the temple.

What I most enjoyed was seeing people trying to toss coins high into the central tower for good luck.

After leaving the temple, we stopped back by Yuyuan Garden to see if there was anything happening. Not much new so we grabbed some Monkey King hats and just blended in with the crowd…

Ok. Maybe not.

Usually, I get really annoyed with people taking pictures of me in China. This is because they continually record me and take pictures even when I tell them to stop. But in this case, I saw real cameras which means real pictures! Yes Please! We even made it on WeChat pages.

We wandered to the Bund to find more Chinese New Year things and hopefully set up for some fireworks later. No luck. Due to new laws, Shanghai does not allow fireworks because of air pollution. I’m all about saving the planet, but could we just have them for one important night?! Although there were no fireworks, we met up with other friends and got more pictures taken. We also had really great strawberry waffle ice cream and rou bao. The rou bao were so delicious I scarfed them down.

*Update. I loved the rou bao, but my stomach did not.

We ended up back in Yuyuan Garden but nothing was happening because everything was closing for the new year. Even the lanterns closed down at 3:30. Ended up stopping at The Shed for dinner and chillin’ in the bed. New Years fail.