I woke in the morning in Shanghai and sent a few more emails. Then we left our heavy backpacks at the hostel and took smaller bags out. We grabbed train tickets to Anqing from around the corner and then took a taxi to Qibon. We walked around lanes and alleys of a bazaar that reminded me of streets in older parts of Karachi and Lahore, but cleaner, and not all broken. 
I saw an amazing artist gallery of an apparently well known Chinese sculptor on his 100th 
anniversary (I'm assuming he is no longer living). There was a tribute gallery from his students as well. I also some art books and spoke to a man named Aaron about them. I greeted him with a "Nee how" and he assumed I knew mandarin and started speaking...but when he saw the confused look on my face, he switched to some pretty good English.
I spoke for a bit then ran ahead to call my friends back to check out the music instrument shop next door. We returned and Mike broke a guitar string while tuning. 
Andy played Guzheng (kind of a tabletop string instrument). Omar grabbed a stool and started drumming after hitting different parts of it to get a feel for the sound. I drew a not so great sketch of them as they jammed on a song we had played before much to the delight of the woman who owned the shop and Aaron from next door. 
A crowd gathered in the narrow lane in front of the shop and people enjoyed seeing them play music and seeing me do my crude little pen sketch on a scrap of paper. I gave the sketch to our gracious hosts then joined the guys on a song. It was such a sweet experience to break out of that tourist looking to buy something and store owner looking to sell something mode and to just share a beautiful moment using music to communicate. The people were so sweet and gracious, it was very touching and beautiful to be there and share that. They refused to let us pay for the broken string.We exchanged contact info (I gave them my cards with the watercolor sketches on them) and we walked on across a canal with interesting boats on it and head over to the Buddhist Temple (7 treasures). Entrance fee was 5 rmb (less than a US dollar) paid to a sleeping attendant woke as soon as we snuck, I mean walked up to him. 
The temple was a beautiful tower in a larger walledcompound, with a garden and building with statues dedicated to military heroes. We walked up the tower, each floor with what I believe was a representation of the Buddha as people bowed down, lit incense, and walked up. Mike met a group of mostly younger girls who started asking him questions about us. 
They in in turn told us more about the temple. 
They joined us for a bit and asked for all of us to take pictures with their family out in the garden. We did and they were very sweet, and seriously had crushes on Mike haha. 
We went to a pool with statues of the 7 treasures before saying goodbye many pictures later and checked out the military heroes statues before heading to a restaurant outside for another amazing vegetarian meal.We rested there a few hours before grabbing a taxi to M50, an industrial complex converted into an artist area. We knew we had arrived when we started seeing tons of amazing graffiti along a long stretch of wall. We got out at a gallery and started exploring. This was the most amazing creative arts place! Many excellent galleries. 
The spaces were as fascinating as the art in them. Tons of variety. It was truly humbling to see the excellence of contemporary Chinese art along side some foreign art. 
There were younger people spray painting more great graffiti on designated walls. We spent a lot of time exploring before sitting in a beautiful coffee shop to decided a route to walk, following the Souzhu canal to the Bund.
