For the Labor Day holiday, a friend had the bright idea of going to see the ocean. There's an ocean view 观海 park at the southeastern tip of the area where Shanghai sits, and you can go there by subway! Well, in fact it turns out that you can take the subway (3 to the 4 to the 2 to the just-completed 16, whose entire length we went) but after two hours and a bit it only gets you to the northwest edge of the circular ocean-water 滴水湖 Dishui Lake. From there it turns out to be about 7km to the park, and another 7 back. It made for a longer outing than I'd expected, and didn't
quite offer an ocean view... but was enjoyable nonetheless. Wide open blue sky, sea air, and not very many people.
There are several camping areas along Dishui Lake, behind fences with few openings. Most people go in and out through gaps like this one.
Stands of reeds dancing in the brisk wind as we trudged seaward
The apparently whale-shaped construction at the ocean-view park.
The ocean view! Actually it's mudflats, though you can make out some ruffled brown in the distance. Perhaps you can see more ocean at high tide? It turns out to have been a brilliant idea of whomever reclaimed all this land (you can make out how much in the google map above) to leave Dishui Lake, which provides all the ocean view city people want, deep green and wavey. And convenient to the subway, too!
