This week City Weekend has been exploring the simple activities that help return you to innocence and bring about pure joy. So far we've discovered the art of snoozing, the freedom of climbing trees and how to create works of art with abandon. Today we finish our list of the simple stuff we get up to in Shanghai. So set aside your concerns about money, productivity, or being cool and surrender to a simpler life.

Baking Wonky Cakes

Brutal sunlight and the humid plum rain season are certainly not a pleasant combination. So skip the sweat-soaked outdoor activities and spend an afternoon chillaxing at a do-it-yourself bakery and making your loved one a tasty sweet treat.

There are plenty of DIY bakeries in town that will teach you how to make delicious cakes and cookies. For the nostalgia junkies, check out DIY Sweet 21. This small bakery and studio offers a variety of classic cakes from tiramisu to vanilla and chocolate cake to good old apple pie. No experience is necessary. In fact, it’s more fun if you don’t know what you’re doing and your treats come out a bit wonky.

If you’re ambitious and fancy creating something that’s one-of-a-kind, Choice DIY Chocolate and Cake is a good pick. The friendly owner has more than 100 cake and chocolate moulds, so whatever is running wild in your imagination, he can teach you how to make it. Yes, we mean iPhone cakes, Louis Vuitton-print icing and jello shaped like babes in bikinis.

If you’ve only got a couple of hours to spare, try creating half a dozen yummy cup cakes at C’est Cupcake or some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at Aike DIY bakery. Decorating is where you can go wild, and everywhere has rainbow shades of frosting.

Costs vary depending on the ingredients, style and size of the cakes and cookies, so phone up, reserve a place and tell them what you want to make.

Words by Hailey Meng

DETAILS

Where:DIY Sweet 21, 21 Shengping Jie, Tel: 159-2192-6873

Where:Choice DIY Chocolate and Cake, Rm 133, 169 Wujiang Lu, Tel: 6217-9778

Where: C’est Cupcake, Rm. 102 Bldg 11, 3911 Hongmei Lu, Tel: 6228-1205

Where:Aike DIY bakery, Rm 215, 179 Guangji Lu , Tel: 5161-5657

Getting Lost

Every foreigner who ends up in Shanghai must at some level love the idea of getting lost. That is part of the reason we came so far away, to somewhere so foreign. Even if you’ve been here years, this is a city in which it’s always possible to turn a corner and see something new, to wander down an alley into an enclave you’ve never seen before, to wake up on a Metro, stumble out of a station and lose yourself in utterly unfamiliar surroundings. Occasionally, this is a cause of panic. Often, it is a delight.

Night is the best time to get lost because the dark can make even the most banal streets beautiful. The next time you leave a bar, ignore the taxi queue and walk home. The long way. Head for the Creek. Explore the voids and the places where the warehouses still remain.

Shanghai is one of the safest metropolises in the world. You can walk anywhere at any time of the night without the slightest problem. Stumble on the city’s channels and rat runs, the hazy streets where curbside barbers shave shirtless gentlemen at four in the morning. In the daytime, walk in ever increasing circles. Treat Zhabei as a labyrinth and Yangpu as a puzzle.

Life’s routines are the enemy. Taking the same route home from work every day renders the journey meaningless. Tomorrow, take the fire escape down, turn left out the door, stare at the floor and keep turning corners until you hit a wall. Then climb the wall and keep going.

Words by Nick Taylor

DETAILS

Where:Everywhere and anywhere

What other simple pleasures do you enjoy in Shanghai? Have we missed any out?

We've got more simple suggestions for you, take a look at our other lists The Simple Pleasures of Shanghai (Part 1) and The Simple Pleasures of Shanghai (Part 2).