A few days ago I had some free time so I took myself on an adventure! I really wanted to go to M50, also known as 50 Moganshan Road, which is the contemporary art district of Shanghai. People compare it to New York’s SoHo and Time Magazine listed it as one of the top ten things to do in Shanghai, so I thought it would be worth checking out!
On the way to M50 I saw a random museum that said free entry so I decided to go in. It ended up being the Shanghai Museum of Textile and Costume. I got to see some of the history of different textiles used in ancient China as well as a little bit of the modern production. In addition to this, they featured all the awards won by the different textile factories.
After I got out of the museum, I continued down the road and finally ran into the art district. There were tons of art galleries and cafes, so I just picked a couple to walk into to observe the art. One of the galleries I walked into had tons of products made from copper because they wanted to “bring copper products a unique characteristic to modern life to complement modernity’s delicate perfection”. Another gallery I walked into had a beautiful photo of a Chinese mountain range that was being sold for 600,000 RMB (around 100,000 USD). One of my favorite galleries was called ShanghART, it was also one of the first contemporary art exhibits created in Shanghai. They had a really cool exhibit called “Thrown into the Wind” by Liu Yi and it was basically fabric in the air that was shaped to look like it was moving with air blowing it around and images in the background. It was really interesting and didn’t really make sense – but hey that’s art!
After I wandered in and out of M50, I decided to go get a poke bowl (raw fish salad) because I was really hungry and have discovered a newfound love for sushi, sashimi, and everything related to that. I looked up this popular place called Little Catch and then went on my way. They source their seafood from all over the world, so it’s extremely high quality and fresh. I got one of their most popular bowls called Dynamite Salmon, and it was excellent! Not only did I get my poke, but I also decided to do some reading for my Chinese Philosophy class, so it was a productive afternoon.
After poke, some of my friends reached out to me and said they just got off working at their internship and coincidentally the poke shop was only a 5-minute metro ride away, so I met up with them and we walked around the Formula 1 set up they had in the area. Overall, it was a pretty solid day and its moments like this that make me love Shanghai even more. The ability to just hop on the metro and explore new places are what makes this city so great.
