- Rosa Galicia Flowers
When I was pottering around in The Old French Concession the other day on my way to and from the Propaganda Poster Museum I came across a couple of the flower shops listed in a Shanghai Guide as the best place to buy flowers in the city. (Which one I don't know, I'm gradually losing the plot). As I’ve said before I’m a sucker for flowers and am always on the lookout for the best place that’s going to feed my addiction.
The list of 5 included Rosa Galicia Flowers and A Day in Blossom. Both were small
- Flower Seller, The French Concession
boutiques in this chic part of town – Rosa Galicia had a good display of what they had to sell, Blossom specialises in white Orchids, possibly exclusively. I didn’t ask any prices, my gut feel was that here one would have to ask a large amount just to cover your overheads, overheads that the man with his bike-cart further along the street didn’t have to pay. He had a nice selection of blossomed twigs for sale, ready for the Spring Festival in a couple of week’s time (aka Chinese New Year).
So I came away rather dissatisfied. Was that it? Were these some of the best of the best? There are a couple of flower shops around the apartment – one is in the same building as the local Carrefour, but their stock is small and rather uninspiring.
- Traditional bird cages
I had heard of the Hongqiao flower and pet market, but hadn’t realized quite how close by it is to our flat. It's only two stops away on the metro after all and I looked on the map and measured it out and it seemed quite easy to do. I walked there yesterday and regretted it, as it’s not THAT close. The small roads on my map were written in Chinese and what happened on the ground seemed to have little to do with what I had downloaded from the internet. It took me an hour + to get there. And what I found were some animals – the odd goldfish, caged bird, rabbits and mice for sale, home furnishings and décor items, fish bowls, ethnic and art deco style furniture and plants.
- Bonsai tree specialist
Outside the main market building were shops selling pot plants and bonsai trees. Inside there were a couple of ribbon sellers and shops selling red items for Chinese New Year.
But in the main there were flowers. Masses of flowers. I saw very little foliage, one box of oasis foam and then just buckets and buckets of flowers. As far as I'm concerned, so far this is the best place to buy flowers in Shanghai.
- Hongqiao Flower Market
The main flower market building consists of around six lanes of shops - some specialists, some generalists.
- Blossoming Trees for Spring Festival
It is just coming up to that time of year called The Spring Festival aka Chinese New Year. Tree blossom as a herald of Spring plays a significant part. I saw Azaleas, Chaenomeles (Japanese Quince) and bonzaied cherry trees all in flower in readiness for the festival.
- Orchid Specialist
- Generalist Flower Seller
There were specialist sellers such as this orchid seller and then a large number of generalist sellers with a large mixed stock of flowers.
I think these are for display at a banquet, but they may be funeral work. I'm not sure. But the mechanics were interesting. A bamboo stand, but no apparent way of collecting the water dripping from the oasis.
Now all I have to do is to learn enough Mandarin to buy what I want and not get ripped off…………
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