What is the best of Shanghai? I asked my friends. Besides sightseeing, night life, food and many other things, it is for sure that massage is part of the Shanghai experience. I didn’t talked about this topic before – how I can just mention Xiang Yang Market without talking about massage.

My Favorite: Yilin Blindman Massage

In the last few years, I tried some massage place, and I found Yilin is definitely the best. The gap between them and others are not a little – it is huge. I’d like to recommend them to my readers.

Massage in Shanghai

In Shanghai, when you wander on the street, you may see as many massage shop as real estate brokers, as 24 hour convenient stores. They are some of the key street shop elements in Shanghai.

However, most of the massage place is just for recreational. It means, they have massage girls or boys who give you body massage, or foot massage. Most of the places in Shanghai are serious massage, nothing about erotic services. There are some types of massage that is in that category, but they are not on the street, and I do have no idea about that part.

Why Yilin is Good

Yilin are not only recreational, they are even providing medical help to people with problems with their necks or bones. Most of the massage people are blindman, or are sight challenged. They make a living by providing really good massage.

Here are their addresses:

Xuhui Store: No. 1, Lane 110 Nandan East Road 南丹东路100弄1号 64643786 <-- This is the one I visit most often since this is maybe their oldest one.

Pudong Store: Hmm... I don't have their exact address - they are at the Huanlong Road, and the Beiyuan Road and Huantong Road, near the Subway Line #6 Shanghai Children's Medical Center Station. It is not on the street. It is hidden deep in the Yidong Garden. I have created a map for that location.

These are the only two I have been. They have two more locations, but I have never been there:

#521 Xujiahui Road 徐家汇路521号

#1842 Changning Road 长宁路1842号

My favorite guy are employee #4, and #12 in Xujiahui and #12 in Pudong, but it turned out everyone there was almost as good. I am curious about how they did quality control so good.

Price

52 RMB for 60 minutes body massage.

52 RMB for 60 minutes foot massage.

Be prepared that it is very pain when you do massage in this place, because it really helps. They are not fancy places to visit – you will be disappointed to see the narrow and ugly decoration in their rooms, but people came for massage, not for the environment, while many spent too much time on decoration and environment, but offer too bad massage.

When I am asked about three most interesting things that other tourists do not do in Shanghai, I typically give the following suggestion.

1. Transit Between Metro Line #1 and Line #2 in Rush Hours

I know you are tired of the routine scenic spots, and try to dive deep into the daily life of people in this city, a metro ride is a must. To be further visually impressed by the energy of this city, you should schedule your metro ride between 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM. You will not only see what we call “People Mountain People Sea”, it is the type of people and the expression on their face, their pace, what they do in the metro cart, and how huge number of people interact with each other. The scene is shocking for myself every time I experience it. Is there anything more significant to see the largest hub of people in a city with 16 million people?

More information: If your hotel is along the Metro Line #1 or Line #2, get on board a train heading to People’s Square at 8:00 PM typically will give you the experience. Follow the signs to the other line, and be very cautious about your step. Don’t ever try to stop in the middle to take video or pictures – it is not only dangerous but also annoying in rush hours. Don’t be discourage when you have to wait for several minutes before the lines moving a little bit. Don’t be scared to see the platform full packed with people and others on the stairs cannot possible move down – it is people’s life everyday.

2. A quiet walk along Wukang Road

After experiencing the excitement and energy (or congestion, or chaos if you want to describe it that way) of this city, I would highly recommend you to spend an afternoon wandering on the Phoenix-tree -covered small roads in Xujiahui. Wukang Road is my favorite. Be impressed by the historical villas along the quiet street with all type of architect styles, and be moved by the details of local residents life. May it be a row of blooming flowers, or hand written characters welcoming post man on their mailbox. Also, enjoy the loneliness of being one of the only few people on the street. It provides a sharp contrast from what you see from almost everywhere in Shanghai. Don’t forget to stand long enough at the government plate before the villas, to know more about the history of the buildings.

More Information: Wukang Road is located in Xuhui District. It starts from Huaihai Road on the south and Huashan Road on the north. The nearest Metro Station is Changshu Road Station of Metro Line #1. You can walk along the Fuxing West Road to get there. Don’t worry to get lose in that area. The whole area is nice and worth some time wandering around.

For people tired of going to West Lake in Hangzhou or The Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou (I mean, after you visit these two places for more than 10 or 20 times), they may be interested to find out somewhere that si near Shanghai, and offers something new. Wendy and I went to Jinji Lake last Tuesday on our six year wedding anniversary. To my greatest surprise, the Jinji Lake has been turned into a new West Lake type of tourism destination, and a Xintiandi type of clustering of modern chain high-end restaurants, and Around-Century-Park type of high-raising residential areas.

How to Get There

Among all the transportation options, driving seems to be the most practical way to get there (do you want to take public transportation just to have a cup of tea along the lake?) It is about 100 km from Shanghai, and takes 1 and half hour to get there.

You can take Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway 沪宁高速 A11 (wonderful newly completely 4-lane expressway) heading Nanjing direction, and turn to Suzhou City Ring Expressway (East) 苏州绕城（东）heading Zhou Zhuang 周庄. Take the Luzhi/Airport Road 甪直/机场路 Exit, and get to Airport Road (a.k.a S343) heading west for 15 km. Jinji Lake is on your right hand.

If you do want to take public transportation, find a train from Shanghai Railway Station to Suzhou Railway Station (pretty frequent – 30 minutes interval), and take Bus 178 to get there. Google Map also suggests that you can walk from People’s Square to Jinji Lake. It costs 16.5 hours, and 81 km. :-)

The Emerging Center

The Jinji Lake is a natural lake that is a little bit bigger than West Lake of Hangzhou (7.82 sq. km v.s. 5.6 sq. km). Just like the old capital Hangzhou to West Lake, the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is the source of the development of Jinji Lake. With huge amount of industrial and commercial activities going on in the park, it is taken for granted that the big natural lake within the area become the entertainment and residential center.

Sitting at any corner of the lake, and look around, you will be amazed by the high raising business towers, and residential buildings. They surround the lake like a curtain. Even you are used to the buildings in Lujiazui, you may still be surprised by the numbers of skyscrapers, and the speed people are building it. If this would have happened to the West Lake, people may say it is a disaster. But in Jinji Lake, the concerns seem to be much less, since this lake on the first day, was designed and built to be a modern West lake – the skyscrapers are also part of the characteristic of Jinji Lake, just like mountains and trees do in West Lake’s example.

Li Gong Di 李公堤

Li Gong Causeway (Li Gong Di 李公堤) is another reason to convince me that Jinji Lake is moving toward the direction of West Lake. The 1400 meters long ancient causeway is now renovated to be a modern street with all kinds of restaurants, and bars.