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There's a quick way to scope out what Fuxing Island has to offer. Not a lot, it would seem, barring some epic dockyard machinery and a fast ferry out of there, across the river to Jinqiao. But a bird's eye view tells you nothing about the fun of going to see for yourself.
Besides, the Google satellite drops you about a hundred yards out in the Huangpu. The most direct overland route is only marginally more interesting; east on Haining Lu, which soon turns into Zhoujiazui Lu, all the way to the Shanghai Fisheries University, from where Hai'an Lu, immediately to the north, leads on over to the island. The real fun is in diverting as you go; willfully looking to get lost. Merely reaching the island becomes something of a challenge, given how much there is to see en route.
The Ward Road Jail on Changyang Lu, for one: built by the Brits in , for a time the largest in the world and still operational as Tilanqiao Prison today; theirs is the imposing wall behind the laundry. There's the Xiahai Temple, on the corner of Kunming and Haimen, from where the smell of incense drifts across what was once Little Vienna. And Zhoushan Lu, where you can see what remains of the old Jewish tenement housing, and stop to watch a game of carrom about which, Adam Minter has more.
