Shanghai: The Mouth of the Dragon!

A new Post! it always seems like so much time passes between these things, I guess it has been about a week. Well when we last left you we were huddled in an internet cafe in shanghai, hiding from the rain. At that particular moment, our outlook on Shanghai as a city and China as a nation was probably at its nadir. Shanghai is no Tokyo. It is, as an architect we met in Japan put it, a "megacity that doesn't work". This is apparent the moment you first try to cross a street. Traffic laws are non-existent, and motorcycles frequently rip down the sidewalks, laying on the horn, rather than braking, when encountering pedestrians. This, needless to say, took some getting used to. I think that to a couple of kids raised in Western Canada, where cars stop if you look like you might be considering crossing the street, Shanghai is a little unnerving. It really does seem as if the drivers are trying to kill you. I'm happy to say, however, that we really did get used to it after a while, and with time learned to negotiate the traffic, panhandlers, scammers (more on them later) and more honest street peddlers, which allowed us to take in a few of the impressive sights Shanghai had to offer.




Shanghai's 'Old Town' Or the part which remained largely Chinese during the years of European occupation. We found this while walking around in a daze on our first night in town, we were sufficiently impressed.









The Bund: former center of the European occupation, now sight of Dolce and Gabbanna outlets and chic restraunts, also, fairly pretty.






This is Pudong area, across the Huangpu River from the Bund. Notable things, the bizarre 'pearl' tower on the left, (there are more spheres obscured on the top), the fact that all the tops of the buildings are obscured by ever present smog, and the fact that in 1990, that entire area was nothing but a broad marsh with a couple of farms scattered sporadically on the outskirts.

The amount that has been built in Shanghai in the last twenty years is truly incredible, its no wonder nothing works properly, the city's primary concern is constant expansion. An impressive endeavour, but leads to some hit-or-miss concepts. For example, the 'Bund sightseeing tunnel' which visitors can take in lieu of a subway ride between the Bund and Pudong.




It was actually kind of fun, but really not much of a tourist attraction. The locals in the tram with us seemed unimpressed, we think they were just using it as an uncrowded alternative to the regular subway. Not that anyone could blame them for avoiding the Subway. Despite the fact that the Shanghai Metro really is the best way to get around the city (no one trying to run you down!) The crowds can get a little intense, and North American mores for proper subway etiquette don't seem to have jumped overseas, as soon as the doors open at a stop, the crowd at the platform pushes there way in to the train, which doesn't help the equally large crowd trying to leave the train simultaneously. This often creates a 'three stooges' effect wherein people are jammed in the doorway for a few minutes until the shoving resolves.


SHanghai offered some historic sights as well, from the summer palace gardens of a song dynasty emperor, to a buddhist monastery chock full of jade sculptures.







So Shanghai turned out to have some very interesting sights to offer. We also stopped at the Shanghai museum, which has been hailed as a revolution in Chinese Museums, we both found it a bit drab to be honest. There was very little exposition of any of the items on display, and we found it hard to appreciate much of it without context. The Museum sits in Renmin Square, which is supposed to be sort of the beating heart of Shanghai. Sure enough, there certainly seemed to be a lot of Chinese tourists there. We were approached three seperate times by students 'from out of town' who, after a brief, friendly chat in broken english, offered to bring us to any number of special 'cultural events' from a tea festival to an acrobatics show. You may have gathered from my extensive use of quotation marks that these 'students' were not entirely on the level. We, being the distrusting, antisocial beings that we are, turned down all the offers and proceeded to a local vegetarian restaurant (more on that later.) We would later run into a couple of travelers who had taken an offer to head to a tea festival. Six cups of tea and 500 yuan later, they realized their mistake.

Our final day in Shanghai was intended to be a day long jaunt out into an old restored fishing town on the outskirts of the city, followed by a (parentally funded) drink at the exclusive M Bar on the Bund. These plans, however, were sent awry by our decision to eat at an amazing vegetarian restaurant the night before. The restaurant, 'Godly Vegetarian Restaurant' specializes in simulating meat dishes with all vege ingredients. The food was delicious and plentiful (and cheap!) and the decor was an elegant recreation of an outdoor buddhist garden made from marble and wooden pagodas. The restaurant was such a steal that they even included in the price a small additive that wasn't on the menu, a small virus that caused Tom to regularly vomit for the next 24 hours. That, dear readers, is Shanghai in a nutshell.

There is much more to tell, we could probably right another post on the people of Shanghai alone, and we've already been in beautiful Hangzhou for several days, but Kat is already asleep on the couch and Tom is fading fast, so that will be saved for tomorrow night.


Hope everyone is well,
Tom and Kat.