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Friday the 19th was a really long day.We had an early morning flight from Xi’an to Shanghai, and started the touristy stuff straight from the airport after meeting our local guide, Mei. A little bit of background on Shanghai: It’s massive (the biggest city in China! 15 million people!!!), and very different from other Chinese cities. My guidebook describes Shanghai as a “Western invention” and it definitely looks and feels that way to me, in comparison to Beijing and Xi’an. This is mostly because it’s a port city with an ideal location, and has a history of being open to foreigners and foreign trade. Shanghai is also the center of banking and business in China. I think this description from my guidebook sums it up very nicely:
“You can’t see the Great Wall from space, but you’d have a job missing Shanghai. One of China’s most massive and vibrant cities, Shanghai is heading places the rest of China can only fantasize about. Somehow typifying modern China while being unlike anywhere else in the land, Shanghai is real China, but perhaps just not the real China you had in mind.
In a doddery land five millennia old, Shanghai feels like it was born yesterday. When you’ve had your fill of Terracotta Warriors, musty palaces and gloomy imperial tombs, submit to Shanghai’s debutante charms…This is a city of action, not ideas…The movers and shakers of modern China may give a nod to Beijing, but their eyes – and their money – are on Shanghai.”
Also, starting this May Shanghai will host the 2010 World Expo. They’re doing a lot of construction to get ready for this, and you can see the little blue mascot – Haibao – everywhere.
Just for reference, the Bund and Pudong are two well-known areas on opposite sides of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. The Bund is famous for big, historic, and old buildings – it has the foreign banks, trading houses, consulates, and government buildings of ‘old’ Shanghai. The best thing to do in the Bund is just stroll and soak up the architecture and views across the river; unfortunately, it’s under construction now, so we didn’t get to fully experience the glamour of old Shanghai!
On the opposite side of the river, Pudong is a completely different story. Literally 20 years ago – seriously, in 1990 – this area was farmland. Now it is a huge developed area; the financial center of Shanghai, and thus of the entire country; and home to China’s three tallest buildings (more about those later).
Our first stop that day was the Shanghai Museum. This is a really amazing place, and we didn’t spend enough time there. It’s all Chinese traditional artwork; I looked at paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, and ancient sculptures. Really beautiful stuff in a gorgeous museum – I definitely recommend it, and if I could go back I’d spend at least half a day there with an audio guide.
After the museum we had another ‘cultural experience,’ aka sponsored shopping trip, this time to a silk factory. This was the worst of the bunch – it was near the end of a really long day, I have absolutely zero interest in silk, and they were mostly selling expensive pieces for the home, like comforters and bed sets. I’m sure it was really nice stuff and if you have a nice home to decorate it would be interesting and worthwhile, but somehow I didn’t see anything there that would suit my one-room shack in Korea. :)
The last thing on that day’s agenda was a stop along the Huangpu River in Pudong. We had a few minutes to take in the evening view and snap some pictures; there were great views on either side. We had the Oriental Pearl Tower right behind us, and the Bund across the river, with river boats full of tourists cruising up and down in between. My camera doesn’t really take good night shots, so for the moment I just soaked in the view and had a cone from a tiny little McDonald’s stand that only sold ice cream!
Our hotel was the Shanghai Crowne Plaza Hotel. Of our three hotels in China, the Huabin International in Beijing had the best rooms, but this one had the best breakfast.
On Saturday, like in Beijing, we had a free day and a choice between going with Mei or exploring on our own. I opted to go with the China Spree tour this time, because they were going to do the same things I wanted to anyway and I didn’t feel like planning or finding my own way around the city. There were only about eight of us, so we switched to a smaller bus. It was nice to be with a small group for a change – I liked everyone else on the tour group, but 35 is a lot of people to always be around!
Our first stop was the Yuyuan Garden and the adjacent bazaar, in the ‘Old City’ part of Shanghai. There were lots of cool, old-fashioned buildings in the Old City, and it had more of a traditional feel to it; we could see the skyscrapers off in the distance, but there were none here and it really did feel like the oldest, original part of Shanghai.
We got to the Yuyuan Garden a bit early and so had it mostly to ourselves, for the first few minutes anyway! The garden was built by a rich family in the 1500s, and took almost 20 years for them to build (the gardens were originally much larger than what survives today). It was absolutely beautiful, exactly what you think of when you picture Chinese gardens – zigzag bridges, bamboo stands, carp ponds, and raised pavilions amongst trees, flowers, and dragons! My pictures don’t do it justice.
Just outside the Yuyuan Garden, the bazaar area was very busy and decorated for the New Year – lanterns hanging from every surface, tigers everywhere (including a huge one made out of cans), lots of signs, and the Expo mascot, Haibao. In China the color red symbolizes luck and prosperity, and it’s everywhere during the New Year – red signs, red lanterns, people wearing red, and red clothes and things for sale (including underwear! Check out my pictures). Besides all the decorations, the bazaar it was mostly little shops, lots of touristy stuff. It was just packed – there was another zigzag bridge that took us several minutes to cross, just because there were so many people trying to cross this pond. It was crowded and crazy, but a fun, energetic atmosphere.
After the Yuyuan Garden and bazaar, we headed to Pudong to visit the Jinmao Tower. Jinmao Tower is a huge (or ‘super-tall,’ as Wikipedia describes it) skyscraper and a landmark in Shanghai. When it opened in 1999, the Jinmao was the tallest building in China; then in 2007, the Shanghai World Financial Center opened right next door and stole the title. Now, the new Shanghai Tower is under construction and set to open next door to that in 2014. The Shanghai Tower will be the new tallest building in China, and the second-tallest building in the world – 128 floors! There must be something in the Pudong water that just makes them compulsive builders of skyscrapers.
Pudong's future cityscape, from left to right: Shanghai Tower, Jinmao Tower, and the Shanghai World Financial Center.
Anyway, we visited the observation deck on the 88th floor of the Jinmao Tower. I think we went here instead of the Shanghai World Financial Center because, according to my guidebook, visiting the 88th floor of the Jinmao costs half of what a trip to the 94th floor of the W.F.C. would cost, and a third of what the 97th and 100th floors would be. The view was pretty cool – a bit smoggy of course, but that can’t be avoided. Shanghai is truly a beautiful city.
Our lunch that day was Mongolian BBQ. It wasn’t really barbeque, and from what I’ve read it’s not even from Mongolia, but it was delicious anyway. There are two buffet lines. One had several kinds of thinly sliced, frozen meat – pork, chicken, beef, lamb, and maybe another one. The other had a selection of vegetables and at least a dozen kinds of sauces and oils. We chose our meat, veggies, and flavors and headed over to a big round griddle (this may be an obscure reference, but the griddle reminded me of what they made pancakes on for the pancake feeds at my church!). Two guys dumped your bowls on the griddle and stir-fried it for a few minutes with huge long knives. The grill was big enough for several people’s food to cook at the same time. Then they threw it back into your bowl and served it to you. It was so good, especially trying all the different sauces, and there was rice and really good soup too. An excellent lunch.
After lunch we visited the knock-off market for a little shopping. It’s so funny that some countries, like the U.S., go to so much effort to protect copyrights and prevent piracy and knock-offs; then in China our guide for an official, organized tour with an American company takes us straight to the knock-off market as part of a day out! The market was crazy and weird, housed in a warehouse with several dirty floors of little stalls and very aggressive vendors. I asked one woman for something I couldn’t find in her stall, and she didn’t have it but she ran off for two seconds, came back with a little rolling suitcase from somewhere and dumped it out on the floor for me to look through! And in another place I went into the ‘back room’ (every stall had one) but there was nothing I wanted there, so the lady reached out and flipped the back wall around to reveal a second wall full of stuff! It was like the Egyptian pyramids for illegitimate designer goods – trap doors, fake exits, and hidden treasures.
Later we stopped for coffee on Nanjing Road. Nanjing Road is a really long, busy shopping street, full of department stores, high-end shops, restaurants and cafes, famous hotels, and old mansions. We sat at an outdoor café and just people-watched for a few minutes. According to Wikipedia, it’s the world’s longest shopping district, and over 1 million people visit it every day!
Our last stop before dinner that evening was an area of Shanghai known as the French Concession. The concession itself ended during WWII, but the area is still known as the French Concession. Now it’s just a really nice, pretty area for shopping, restaurants, bars, and fancy residences. Within the French Concession we visited Xintiandi, a small pedestrian district of very stylish, high-end shops and restaurants that’s famous with tourists; like the Bund, it’s a place people go to experience the glamour of ‘old’ Shanghai.
Xintiandi is also famous for having lots of narrow alleys full of shikumen, or traditional stone gate houses. They look just like Western townhouses, except for the stone gate in front of each one. They’re beautiful buildings and unique to Shanghai. According to Wikipedia, 80% of the city’s population used to live in shikumen houses (in the past they weren’t so much townhouses as tenement buildings in slums), but many were subdivided or demolished after WWII. The fancy ones in places like Xintiandi have all been renovated or even rebuilt, and are mostly used for retail shops or restaurants.
After dinner that evening, we went to a performance of the Shanghai Acrobats. It just blew my mind – I’ve never seen anything like it. There were quite a few different acts – contortionists, plate spinners, daredevils on motorcycles, group cyclists (more than ten people on one bike!), roller-skaters, jugglers, boys flying into the air off of teeter-totters, a magician, strong men, and more. It’s impossible to describe each act, but it was so beautiful, amazing, stunning, etc – there aren’t enough superlatives for it. I was a little surprised because I expected it to be more glittery and showy, like Vegas or something. Parts of it were, but other parts were so controlled and artistic it just hurt to watch. If I had to choose a favorite it would probably be the plate-spinners – each woman had a two handfuls of plates spinning on poles, maybe 10 or 12 each, and they did acrobatics and tricks while they whirled these plates around! It was so delicate – the music, the little tinkling sound the plates made, the plates reflecting and whirling in the lights...I would give anything to see it again (I know the acrobats tour around the world, so if you ever have a chance to see them, GO!!!).
So that was Shanghai. It’s a really beautiful, exciting city with so much to offer, and of the three cities I visited with China Spree, I liked Shanghai the best. I can definitely see myself spending more time there, if I ever get the chance!
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