Shanghai - Oct 30th - Nov 2nd, 2004

Shanghai, Shanghai! We left Suzhou at mid afternoon to head for Shanghai which was about an hour away from Suzhou. It was mostly a relief to leave Suzhou, I didn't particularly like the guide nor did the city seem that interesting. Heading into and out of Shanghai is quite eye opening - the place is just MASSIVE and for a city of 20 million that's growing like crazy it's not surprising. Coming from Suzhou there didn't seem to be a point where the city started it felt like it was there the whole time. The deeper you get though the bigger it gets till you reach the heart of the city which is still massive. The buildings in Shanghai tower over the Huang Pu river, in the downtown core there seems to be no short buildings except for the classics on the Bund.

Our first stop was some sort of tourist trap that sold all sorts of tourist trinkets. It was here that I thought very hard about buying another memory card for my camera. I had arrived in China with 2 half gig memory cards and had hoped not to fill them but the number of venues we were visiting easily started to drive the number of shots I took up quickly. I negotiated with the street stand briefly and got down to a very reasonable price when patience called and I chose to say no, I would wait till Hong Kong and see what happened. The stand owner was a bit miffed as I walked away.

Our next stop was to go down to the Bund and view the Pudong district which was located across the Huang Pu river. The Pudong district used to be nothing more than farm or swampland but the Chinese government choose it as the next spot for Shanghai's expansion and what an expansion! Ok, so it lacks soul but it's still an amazing sight. The Oriental Pearl tower is both garish and stunning as it rises above all else but it still has to share the skyline with other massive towers including the Grand Hyatt hotel where coffee alledgedly costs $20 a pop. Cool stuff. We never did actually venture to that side of Shanghai though other than when we left and headed over to the airport.

Our hotel was just on the edge of the downtown core unlike our fine hotel in Hangzhou. After dinner Ernie and I took a walk around Shanghai and we're not talking the good part. When I mean edge of Shanghai's downtown I do mean edge, the wealth disappears almost instantly, brothels, tiny street stands and the homeless suddenly started appearing. Whereas the downtown core is as modern as any in the world the "underworld" of Shanghai is poor like many other parts of China.

The next day we proceeded to visit different areas of Shanghai which included a stop at Dr. Sun Yat Sen's old home. Dr. Sun was one of the original nationalist revolutionaries in the early 20th century who was advocating change back when the Qing dynasty was on its last legs. I can't really say that much to it as I'm not that much of a 20th century history buff so you'll have to go check it out yourself.

After that we headed out into a wandering trip through some of Shanghai's other neighbourhoods including one absurdly busy shopping area within which almost everything was a fake good. My interest in purchasing fake goods was rather low - I prefer the real thing - so we quickly left and headed over to a newly developed area in Shanghai that's been hugely hyped - Xintiandi. It's a pricey shopping/entertainment district for rich people - our meal at one of the restaurants there cost several times what it would have elsewhere in the city and it wasn't even as big as the other meals. Interesting hood but not one where I would want to spend my cash. The stuff being sold there was easily in the Beverly Hills/Paris price range.

One thing you don't see in these pictures very well is the pollution. Shanghai, like it's other major Chinese cousins, is one hell of a polluted city. It's not as bad as Beijing but it feels that way because the buildings are so tall that you can see the pollution so much more clearly. But more about pollution in the sidebar. Anyways, the next day we travelled to the city centre which included a visit to the city's museum and a walk-by of the Opera house. It was also this day that I visited the Shanghai office of my employer to see some of the people there. I had never met any of them and had only traded a couple emails with them to let them know I was dropping by. It wasn't quite like home but the people there were every bit as hard working and friendly.

I don't recall the museum's name but I can say that the place was rather impressive. The collection of Chinese history presented was beautiful and a real marvel in many ways. There were some boring exhibits but the writing exhibit was awesome and all the artwork in the form of sculpture and pottery was very interesting. Of course there was the guy wearing the fake Harley Davidson leather jacket. How could I tell it was fake? Read the spelling.

Following our visit to the museum which seemed to interest me the most in my family - I'm the nerd, geek, wonk of the group - we then proceeded to the biggest shopping street in Shanghai, Nanking Road. The street is entirely a shopping street and nothing else. There are no cars on it for a significant length. If you want to see Chinese capitalism this is the place, there was even a KFC inside a jewelry store. At night the neon signs come to life and the entire street is bath in a rainbow of colours. It's definitely worth checking out. As for the shopping it's better than most places in China but it's still not Hong Kong or other major metropolitan cities.

Oh yeah, that pretty girl in the picture who's waiting for the bus? She got her face planted into the bus door when it arrived. It was pretty funny when it happened and it's still funny now.

After dinner we took a cruise on the Huang Pu river to see both the Pudong district and the Bund. Shanghai is China's most international city and it shows on the Bund which acts as it's old money financial centre. At night they light up the entire area and it looks gorgeous from the water. Pudong is very interesting as well although it doesn't have the prestige that the Bund has. What was amazing during the cruise was how far the tall buildings ran. As we went down the river it seemed like there was no end to the skyscrapers that were coming up, I can't imagine how they actually plan on filling those buildings despite their huge population.

All in all Shanghai was a marvelous adventure, I've never been to a truly big city before (Beijing doesn't really count - it's a city that's big) and seeing Shanghai was a pretty amazing thing. It's flawed like any big city but it forces you to look at it, it's hard to look away. It was also hard to look away from the tour guide who took us to the airport. She wasn't the most attractive girl but the way she batted her eyelashes and the way she said her words made her 10 times sexier than she really was. I would have needed a cold shower if I had sat any closer to her. Everyone on the bus, men and women, commented on her afterwards. Anyways, off to Hong Kong and the relatives.