Our third day in Shanghai wasn't actually spent in Shanghai, but in a "small town" in the province of Jiangsu (the same as Nanjing) called Tongli. (Or Tong Lii, as it apparently is pronounced... we were corrected 'a couple' of times)
So, we jumped on a bus with a bunch of retired Chinese and sent of to view a 1000-year-old, riverside town, turned tuorist attraction.
The most adventuruos incident, during our 'Tongli adventure' (as I ironically refered to it in a earlier post) was when we, wanting to be rebellious and walk a different way back, almost missed the bus back to Shanghai.
But it wasn't all bad, quite the opposite.
Somehow we managed to loose the crowds, and spent the day wandering the silent, picturesque streets, along the small rivers, eating dumplings and sometimes even getting a glimpse of the rarely seen sun. The old houses and gardens were beautiful, of course, but the highlight in Tongli was definitely The Chinese Sex Culture Museum.
The museum offered both a lot of laughs (our humour is not too developed. I mean a LOT of laughs) and a lot of interesting information about how sex has been viewed in China during different episodes: prostitues, concubines,eunuchs...
The concubine tradition is still carried on by rich Chinese business men handing out their business cards. Accept it, and you become one of his mistresses.
Learning this only yesterday from our roomie, we've happily been accepting a lot of business cards But since we've been traveling third class, there's no need to worry mom.
//H
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