On Sunday we started out by going to the Bund, a walk
way on the west side of the Huangpu river that is where all the big western banks used to be during round one of Shanghai's time as globalized center of Asia. Now it's more about walking down the river with the contrast of the imposing old buildings on the right and striking new buildings across the way on the left:
Impressive, no? It's actually even cooler because the river does this bend towards you right here, creating the effect that the Pudong is some sort of bubble that's reaching out towards you. It feels like you're looking across some magical divide to a different world that's tantalizingly close but just out of reach. Yeah.
After that we walked down Nanjing Road, a huge pedestrian shopping street that contained, among other things, a store dedicated entirely to the sale of scissors. This picture gives you an idea, though it doesn't do justice to the crowds. Note the Radisson hotel in the center right (with the UFO on top)--a not unsubstantial spurt of Minnesota Pride was definitely felt.
From there we went to the municipal museum, which had an amazing collection of all sorts of things relating to China and art and archeology and history. This country has a lot of all three. Among the highlights were the calligraphy (think of reading something written in Shakespeare's longhand), the exhibit on ethnic minorities (including an outfit made entirely from salmon skin), and the bronze work (my favorite piece in the whole museum [not actually true] was a "pillow" made out of bronze which featured five yaks, also made out of bronze, arranged decoratively around the place where you put your head. Each of these feature 2-inch-long horns also made out of bronze, on its head, making for what I'm sure was a very alert rest.
Next was a trip to the old town, basically what was the entire city before Westerners opened it up in the 1800's. It's about 4 square blocks. Very touristy, super crowded, but great for contrasting old/new shots :-):
Finally, we went over to the Pudong (the fantasy out-of-reach fairyland across the river) to go up the Jin Mao Tower (on the left in the above picture). We went up to the lobby of the hotel which occupies the top half or so of the building to see the view:
Not bad. After that we came home to eat an incredible meal and watch the Olympic closing ceremonies. Then bed, rest, and day two.
Day two was notable first because it rained. Given that I'm coming here straight from 10 weeks in LA, that was sort of a shock, ok? Plus it was a lot of rain--flooded streets, etc. When it finally toned down we went out to the former French Concession, once the, well, French Concession and now a trendy area. It reminded me of (wait for it...) Paris! Legitimately, though, because it had the same bigger sidewalks and huge leafy trees and low, older buildings made out of grey rocks with cute stores in them. Parts of it are also heavy on foreigners at the moment, to the extent that they don't even have Chinese writing in the windows.
Probably the best part of that was seeing the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party. It's an impressive, black-and-red building, very imposing. But it's funny because it's part of the same complex as all these western chain restaurants (the ones with no Chinese!). Which is about consistent with the ideology at this point, I guess..
We walked around a lot of really cool, cute, tiny streets with art stores on them, then eventually went for lunch at a wonderful dim sum place. Then explored some more and ended up on this tiny street chock-full of snack stalls. We got the Best Snack Ever, these dumplings with soup and pork inside that tasted amazing. I'm not doing them justice, but I don't have to because Helen does: http://hunckeydory.blogspot.com/2008/08/shanghai-shengjian.html.
That ended our tour, but we went to meet Yimei's parents for dinner at yet another amazing restaurant. This involved (drum roll...) riding the Shanghai Metro during rush hour. Whoa. I was not entirely ready for that. It took us two trains to get on, and then once we did we were crammed together more tightly than I have ever been ever. I think I counted about 28 people within a 3-ft radius of me, but you can actually figure this out better than I by figuring out how much space a person takes up (I'm guessing maybe 2 square feet), and dividing that into 9 pi. That's about 30, which would be 15 people, which means we were crammed tighter than is humanly possible!!! Check it out:
The picture isn't great, but my mobility was limited, ok?
So that was my Shanghai experience. Overall thoughts:
--The city is a giant jumble. The streets are fairly narrow on the whole, and they aren't on any sort of a grid at all. And they're totally bursting with people, bikes, and cars running in all directions. Then, all this is overlaid by skyscraper after skyscraper, which don't have any particular order to them, but it's a different no particular order than guides the streets. So you look up anywhere and you see 5-10 futuristic skyscrapers surrounding you in all directions.
--They're futuristic skyscrapers, way more modern-looking than most I see in the States. Glassy and classy :-).
--Amazing food, every single meal. If this is any indication, I'm psyched for the semester.
Hmm. I had some big profound unifying thoughts when I started writing those, but they seem to have left me. So that's my Shanghai experience! Right now I'm at Yimei's house, about to pack a little mroe, and in about 5 hours I'll get on my plane to Kunming. Exciting...
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