One Day Getaway--Seeking for Beach

After sticking closely to my work over the past two weeks, I was a bit benumbed of being fully occupied myself in the office. To my depression, I accidentally messed up the date of an important function on Saturday, thus missed one of the best annual sales meetings; however, to my delight, I happened to get an entirely free Sunday, nothing was scheduled at all. Injected with a blast of exhilaration and excitement, rather than fiddling around at home, I quickly hopped on the internet, searching out somewhere near the water...

One piece of last year news lingered in my mind longer than any other thing, bearing my mind from time to time that triggered me to have a go... Maybe it's something closely related to my zodiac--Cancer, wherever covered in aqua, is my realm. Seeking beach+Ocean in Shanghai on www.google.com will be my today's mission. I called for my friend to come with me, we hatched a plan and chose the right transportation vehicles, here we go, beach... we were coming... I never expected to view any beaches in Shanghai though I was read that Shanghai used to be a fish village, surrounded by tremendous East Sea. "Shanghai doesn't have sea, mate, forget about that!" That would be the commonplace response from majority of my friends. However, after bearing the tumbles and clinks on the shuttle bus for almost 2.5 hours, we set our foot to the outskirt of Shanghai--Fengxian... The foremost but also the only memory lurked into my mind was one of my previous students who afterwards continued her further education in Melbourne, Australia, she used to commute 3 hours from Fengxian to our study abroad agency twice every week... I never realized how much time she spent in commuting back and forth till today... gosh.. It was even 3 times further than from Shanghai to Suzhou...

We inhaled the fresher air when driving further and further away from the city, as though our organs were being filtered bit by bit. Sceneries rushed past without a single lingerer. While we enjoyed each other's company and chitchat, we overheard the whisper of the cooling breeze from time to time.

Our stomach was rumbling, your mind would lie but never your organs, once we got off the bus, readjusting our outfit, as well as our loose hairdos, I pulled all my hair back and tied them up properly in order not to let them sweep along randomly. The land was very spread out over there, extremely rare in Shanghai, no high rises, intense residential areas around, but led by straight and extensive avenues...Several giant snow-white windmills were sitting ahead of us, sluggishly rotating their sails. We haven't been able to ask what those giants were for. I guess they functioned as wind power generators.

Following the rest of the crowds who seemingly headed over for the same way as we did, the long boulevard was not lined up by all the trees, but clusters of stone warriors and animal guards statues, as though I was sneaking into an Emperor's tomb/Mausoleum in Beijing. I certainly had no idea why they arranged this type of setting in the place near the beach, I bet Poseidon, Greek Sea God wouldn't be jolly that his job has been taken away by those giant stone statues :-)

"Look! That should be the sea!" we rushed ourselves to the nearest bank, posing ready for the massive seashore... "Where is sea?" The only thing caught our eyes was a scum of muddy lands, potholes and bogged fields, on which even a group of the horses were setting their feet swinging back and forth. A dramatic surge of disappointment hit our brains; it was more like a deserted boggy ragged draining marshland. In a sudden, 2.5 hour commutation appeared to be in vain. Whereas, being optimists, one of the outstanding features was take what we get, and turn depression into impression. We certainly knew how to entertain ourselves, even in the most negative circumstance.

I was so exhilarated by all the street food venders who were selling all kinds of snacks, like BBQ chicken wings, little crayfish, prawns, and a large numbers of beverages as our likings. We grabbed ourselves a table, ordered 16 sticks of roasted savories, as well as a basketful of half kilo-weighed sautéed prawns with black pepper powder flavor. Yummy!

Though we have experienced ebb tide, which was doomed for us not to appreciate the tidal wave and the rest of seashore entertainment activities on that day, we were so bewildered by the amusement facilities sitting on the goldish sandy beach (btw, the sand was shipped from Hainan to Shanghai), running around like 10 year old children, the feeling of being thrown upside down by the pirate boat thrilled us deadly, well, more than we expected. The rest oftime was elapsing along with our dissonant tunes, hummed by both of us, and child-like giggles.

In general, we had a great time, and broke the rumor of "Shanghai doesn't have sea"... And it's surely one of the best and rarest spots to keep away from the crowds and easily to wander around for half a day or one, in particular, the chicken wings was undoubtedly the best delicacy I ever had, crispy skin with juicy tender chicken meat inside... The spice they sprinkled on the top was just right!!! Two thumbs up for the BBQ chicken wings!