The Friendship Stores have a wide selection of food, books, garments, jewelry, arts and crafts, antiques, fabrics, music instruments and other gift items. The central area bounded by Nanjing Road and the Bund is a good place to rummage around. Fuzhou Lu is an alleyway to explore, with bookshops and small restaurants which were once a collection of teahouses covering for brothels. By day, from 9 AM to 6 PM, only buses are allowed on Nanjing Road, which otherwise turns into a pedestrian thoroughfare. At night it becomes a street of lights with eye-catching window displays and neon signs.
Early morning is a good time to explore the streets in Shanghai.
Take a stroll along Nanjing Road when the air is crisp and there won't be a shopper to be seen anywhere. Large sections of the street in front of the J.C. Mandarin Hotel will be blocked off, and here at these early hours you will find people dancing in the street. They do it for exercise, and many of the dancers are quite good. Music is piped in over a loud speaker and generally it's from the Big Band era in America. Continued my walk down Nanjing Road to Renmin Square and Renmin Park, once the Shanghai Race course.