Dog Friendly Haiwan Forest Park
Shanghai is a surprisingly dog-friendly city. Many cafés are fine with you bringing your dog inside while you order your coffee, bars don’t mind if your pooch chills on the floor under your table while you drink away your problems, and a plethora of restaurants will allow your furry friend to join you for Sunday brunch. There are, however, a few aspects of owning a dog in Shanghai that leave something to be desired. Namely, the lack of dog-friendly parks. If you live in or near the city centre, you’ve probably been shouted at by more than one baoan as you try to stealthily sneak into a small neighbourhood park on a Tuesday afternoon. In Shanghai, parks are for the elderly to dance and practice saxophone so us dog owners are
forced to find alternatives. Until recently, I knew of two that existed: Shanghai Sculpture Park in Songjiang and Binhai Forest Park in Deep Pudong. I have visited the former with my partner and 3 dogs and would definitely recommend it. But this article is about our attempt (met with a pleasant diversion) to visit the latter.
Haiwan Forest Park is a little over an hour away from the city centre by Huolala (an app like Didi but for moving furniture and dogs) so is definitely doable as a day trip but since we weren’t able to travel much this summer, we decided to make a mini holiday of it and spend 3 nights in rural Pudong. We checked Airbnb, Booking, and Ctrip for accommodations but weren’t able to find a lot of options near the park that allowed dogs. Eventually, we found a beautiful guesthouse, Dong Li Country House on Ctrip, but unfortunately, it was a 1.5-hour drive from our home in Huangpu and still a 45-minute drive from the park. There weren’t any other viable options, so we just booked it and accepted the fact that we’d have to commute to the park
The Park
Haiwan National Forest Park is a quick drive from the guesthouse and is quite massive. We arrived mid-morning and were wondering if it was even open since we couldn’t see any people. It was open, however, we seemed to be the only people crazy enough to visit the park in 35-degree heat. It was hot, so we spent most of the time wandering from shady spot to shady spot, stopping to let the dogs drink, and day-dreaming about Saskatchewan in February.
The park is full of walking paths, grassy clearings, rivers, and lakes. There are also a lot of cherry and plum trees that weren’t in bloom in August but are the main attraction of the park when they are. There are also some boats, amusement park rides, and other kid-friendly attractions that we didn’t even bother looking at.
DongLi Guesthouse
When we arrived at our guesthouse, we were very happy to see that it looked exactly like the pictures. There was a big grass lawn, a deck facing west where we could watch the sun set over the rice fields, and the entire property was surrounded by a fence and a moat probably filled with alligators so our hydrophobic dogs wouldn’t escape.
Nearby the hotel
Because of the heat, we decided to skip Binhai Forest Park and save it for cooler weather. Instead, the next day we decided to Didi into town without the dogs to see what we could see. The town’s main claim to fame seems to be the Shanghai Institute of Electronics and Information which takes up quite a bit of the town’s land area. We didn’t check it out but we did go to the Hong Fu Temple which was small, nice, and typical of every other Buddhist temple in China.
For lunch we found a nice restaurant where, instead of ordering off the menu, you either point at pictures of dishes on the wall or point at fresh ingredients under the
pictures. The food was good but left me feeling like I swallowed a bowling ball.
Overall, the trip was great. The guesthouse was certainly the highlight, so we’ll definitely be returning when we decide to check out the park in cooler weather.
Hong Fu Temple
Food:
Guesthouse breakfast
Eleme (no Sherpa’s)
Hongmiao Farmhouse Food (restaurant 15-minute walk from the temple)
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