Shanghai

Shanghai- Last stop and finally an answer as to why so many Chinese think they should sell westerners watches. See the Nanking Statue - at the end of this entry.

Hear the 1,500,000,000 voices of China all at once. Okay maybe not all 1.5m

We flew over many new buildings with blue roofs on the way to shanghai. Was it for good luck or because of a new building material I don't know. The farmland on the way is in small patches as local farms still survive.

Pudong and the Bund
City Life and Tourist Spots

River life in the big city - the Bund and the Pudong

One tour member who had been to Shanghai in the late eighties before the Pudong was started remarked that he felt like an Indian coming back to Manhattan now after selling it for $24.

The classic view of the Podong from the Bund. The Pudong was farmland until 1990 when government started clearing the land and building the space age skyline.

River view

Industry on the River

The Bund is the old western portion of Shanghai. It used to be subdivided with sections ruled by Britian, the US, and other countries. A raised walkway follows the river giving an view of the river and the Pudong across the way.

This barge toats a Large television screen along the river

Tour boats cruise up and down the river. I recommend a cruise at sunset.

At the time of the picture (October 2006) the building on the left was said to be the third tallest in the world and the one on the right half way done to being the tallest.

Sunset on Shanghai

Skyscrapers

More on the way.

Pudong at Dusk

Pudong Night Action

City Life and Tourist Spots

The endless subway cars of the Shanghai subway. The cars are seemlessly connected. This picture was before rush hour on the way back I was the last one to squeeze in.

The people of China are known to have a great passion and respect for food, predating their starvation diets that too many had in the great leap forward. They treat meals as events and usually have a crowd to enjoy them.

I liked the meals in China although some complained that they were 1) too much the same 2) had too much food 3) and were not what they were used to. The restaurants they took us to were for tourists. One night I came back from a solo excursion and ate alone in the hotel but with a non English speaking wait staff in their local restaurant. I had chicken soup (way too big a bowl), and some veggies, and some other main course. I forget what but it was good but not exciting. The servings all seemed to be sized to share.

Another time I ventured with our traveling professor to a local fast food restaurant.
Local Fast Food drink

Local Fast Food shop with no English on the signs and no pictures of the food. I had some very tasty beef with noodles in a broth. I repaid the local staff by entertaining them with a view of a western trying to eat long soupy noodles with chopsticks. Hope they enjoyed it.

I used chopsticks most nights but these noodles were a problem. For most meals, we ate off small plates and the courses were brought to a lazy Susan in the center of the table. The dishes were in no particular order and you never knew what was coming or when it was going to stop. Usually it stopped when they brought out desert (always – watermelon and sometimes with other fruits) but once they followed it with a large plate of fish. Of course I had already stuffed myself so I skipped the eyeball.

Bok Choy was common, usually white rice, only occasionally, all meals had soup that was usually very good, a lot of the meat was all bone and skin and not worth tackling but usually a plate or two had something good, yak in particular was tasty. Chengdu had Sichuan food and they didn’t tell you what was spicy or not but most was bland enough to survive. Even though they tried to scare us most of it wouldn’t have been out of place in an western restaurant (although it would have been labeled hot and spicy). I did suffer once on a hidden pepper where I finished my beer, my water, and all the watermelon I could get before it subsided.

They did give us a couple of breaks where you could get pizza & pasta or steaks. But obviously the quality wasn’t the same.

Breakfasts were in top end hotels and included western style with fruit, cereal, omelets and bacon plus sometimes Chinese rice balls. I tried some pickled vegetables but only once.

The little wine I had was mediocre, the beer better (sometimes Australian), the green tea was fine, and the yak butter tea creamy with a distinctive non western taste. Supposedly the house wives of Tibet drink it all day long – I’m not sure what else is in it… But very few of our group took seconds.

Overall good, but not the expected culinary adventure – okay the Twelve Dumplings dinner in Chengdu was fantastic, the camel paws at the Empress Dinner were something else, and the Beijing night market was out of Halloweeen - so call me jaded.

Shanghai was the last stop so I also did the McDonald's check. They handed me a point and choose plastic menu. I selected the equivalent of a quarter pounder with cheese and recieved received one with cucumber slices and yellow sauce although the fries were the same. It was spicy than most of the food we were served at the tourist restaurants. The combo was 17.50 RMB or $2.23 US - less than 1/2 US prices.

Shanghai Street Action, a fast moving city.

Shanghai Acrobats, a variety show aka Ed Sullivan without the Beatles or Elvis.

Acrobats on chairs, but notice the guide wires.

Silk Cocoons at another educational sales opportunity.

These machines unweave the silk worm cocoons and create a spool of thread to make silk bed covers.

Apartments

This vet was working in an open store front.

Pudong skyscrapers to ice wagons. Two centuries of living in one city.

Brass Plate from the Shanghai museum. One thing I learned from the museum was that I liked Eight Eccentrics better than the Four Wangs. (I found their paintings were less detailed but more evocative - really.)

Shanghai Museum friendly face.

Not so friendly face.

Rock Garden

Garden Statue

One of enlightments that traveling brings is to see how the rest of the world views us.

This statue on Nanking Road - one of the worlds most famous shopping streets - says it all. If you look closely you'll see that neither western adult is wearing a watch... obviously a need to be fulfilled.

Sales Pitch

Next stop Conclusion

Or return to China