Day 10: Taiping Street and Pozi Street

19th April 2019 (Friday)

My back was aching. I was not too eager to go out. It was 8:41 a.m. and I was still in bed updating my diary for the blogs.

Finally, I left the hostel at about 9:20 a.m. I would go to Pozi Street but while on the way, I decided to take a random street to look for breakfast. It took a while before I found the steamed bun and dumpling shop. After having my breakfast, I decided to continue walking into the uncharted neigbourhood.  I was glad that I did. I discovered local breakfast snack. It was good

I continued walking with no planned directions. My back pain was giving me problem. I stopped at a quiet bus-stop to massage my back. After resting my back for a while, I continued. Unexpectedly, my wandering brought me back to Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd), across the road from Furong Square. I then decided I should now go to look for Pozi Street, known for its street food.

Pozi Street runs parallel to Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd) and there should be a street perpendicular to Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd) that leads to Pozi Street. Now, there was a problem with the location of Pozi Street. Google Map (before April 2019) and Open Street Map (OSM) indicated different locations. Google Map indicated that it was north of Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd) (a check of Google Map on 24 Aug 2019 showed that the error has been corrected and is consistent with OSM). OSM showed that it was south of Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd). Anyway, I walked west, towards the bridge to Orange Island looking for the street which would lead to Pozi Street.

At one street intersecting with Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd) (N28° 11.910' E112° 58.095'), I noticed people with backpacks walking about. If this street has visitors, could it be the street leading to Pozi Street? Indeed, that was what I thought at that time (but now I know it was San Tai Jie. "Jie" means street). I walked in, continued pass an intersection and at this juncture, the street was renamed San Xing Jie. I walked to the very end but there was not much to see. As I walked back, I decided to turn westwards at the intersection along Xi Pailou Jie. At the end of Xi Pailou Jie, I saw lots of people.

I walked south and at the end, there was an entrance gate. It was Taiping Street, another street famous for street food. I then walked north but there was not a lot of street food. There was a lot of people, but not crowded.

The northern end of Taiping Street intersected with Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd). I still have not found Pozi Street and decided to continue walking west along Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd) towards the bridge. Towards the end of Wuyi Avenue (Jiefang West Rd), I turned southwards. From OSM map, there was an entrance to Pozi Street. Finally, I found the street.

Along Pozi Street, I saw the well-documented entrance to Huo Gong Dian (Fire Palace). It was a little compound housing the famous restaurant where Chairman Mao ate and the temple.

The other end of Pozi Street ended at Huangxing Square, at Huangxing Square Subway Station Exit/ Entrance 1. I would not have taken the long walk to find Pozi Street if I had known Pozi Street intersected with Huangxing Square. The OSM map and Google Map certainly did not show that and there was a dearth of information on the web on how to find Pozi Street.

The night before, I visited Huangxing Square but had decided against walking southwards to Nanmenkou because I did not think there was anything different from Huangxing Square. Today, I just thought that I needed to walk the old streets at Nanmenkou. Hence, I went back to Huangxing Square and walked the old streets at Nanmenkou. The area was being rejuvenated, with old buildings being torn down or renovated. I guessed I visited too late.