Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The China Sex Culture Exhibition
At the north end of the promenade, close to the exit from the Bund Tourist
Tunnel, is the absorbing
China Sex Culture Exhibition
(daily 8am-10pm;
¥20), the private collection of a single-minded academic, Liu Dalin. As well
the many rather quaint pornographic images and jade phalluses on show,
exhibits include a “widow's pillow” - a headrest with a secret dildo compart-
ment - a tool for expanding anuses, a knife used to turn men into eunuchs
and a saddle with a wooden stump for punishing adulterous women. There
are also graphic figurines from Africa and India and a well-endowed nude
sculpture by artist Yu Qingcheng. Lengthy English captions touch on
marriage customs, creation myths, sexual health and sexual symbolism - you
may be surprised to discover what the common “double fish” icon, seen on
everything from woodcuts to cigarette packets, actually stands for, and depic-
tions of frogs and fish aren't as innocent as they might have seemed either.
It's an unusual museum for China and corporate Pudong seems an incon-
gruous place to put it - though perhaps its presence here is sly commentary
on the subconscious motivations of the men who built the enormous
erections outside.
Shanghai Aquarium and Natural World Insect Kingdom
In the immediate vicinity are two attractions that don't quite cut it for general
visitors but are great if you have kids in tow. At the large
Shanghai Aquarium
at 158 Yincheng Bei Lu (daily 9am-6pm; ¥110, children ¥70;
W
www
.aquarium.sh.cn), there are sharks, penguins and seals as well as fish, and one
section is devoted to endemic species such as the Chinese alligator and
Chinese giant salamander. Particularly impressive is the aquarium's long
viewing tunnel. The
Natural World Insect Kingdom
(daily 9am-5pm; ¥35,
children ¥20), just around the corner on Fenghe Lu, is a little menagerie of
creepy beasties. It's all fiercely tacky but surprisingly hands on - you can feed
and handle some of the critters.
The Oriental Pearl Tower and History Museum
Like it or loathe it, the 457-metre-high
Oriental Pearl Tower
(daily 8am-
9.30pm) has come to symbolize Shanghai, and its
viewing platforms
are now
a required destination for every Chinese tourist. As a result, there's often quite
a queue to get in. In fact, the Jinmao Tower (see p.90) observation platform is
higher, classier and cheaper - though of course, viewing the city from inside the
Pearl Tower does have one major advantage: for once, you can't see the gaudy
thing. The pricing system is ridiculously complex: basically, go for the ¥70
ticket, which gets you to the highest bauble. There is a revolving restaurant in
the middle globe but it's best avoided.
The
Shanghai History Museum
at the base of the tower (same hours;
¥35) is surprisingly decent; the majority of exhibits, which focus on the
nineteenth century onwards, do a good job of evoking the old glory days,
with convincing waxwork figures in dioramas of pharmacies, teahouses and
the like. One of the old bronze lions from outside the HSBC building (see
p.53) is on display, as well as a boundary stone from the International Settle-
ment, and there's a detailed model of the Bund as it would have looked in
the 1930s.
It's a short walk from here to the
Pearl Dock
, where you can join hordes of
Chinese trippers on a boat tour down the Huangpu. A thirty-minute round trip
costs ¥40; boats run every hour from 10am to 6pm.
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