Just over two weeks ago we returned from a two and a half week tour of China. Our first stop was in Shanghai. I loved this city. We started our trip by traveling from the airport on the world's fastest train the Maglev which reached a speed of 431 kilometers per hour on our ride into the city. We started our day with a talk through the Yu Yuan Gardens and surrounding shopping district and tea house.
The gardens have been beautifully restored and are a cool escape from the bustling city outside its walls. This next picture although a little dark is a favorite view from the garden because it shows traditional Chinese architecture with views of shiny, metallic skyscrapers whose architectures still echoes its traditional surroundings.
While in Shanghai we also visited a silk workers spinning silk threads, went to the top of the Jingmao Tower, walked down Nan Jing Road, and visited the Bund.
This picture shows some of the architecture around the People's Square. I loved the taller building to the left because it looks like a UFO landed on top. I realized early on that China has become an architect's playground. There is a booming economy, a revere for high design (usually at a foreigner's hand) and the population to throw up skyscrapers like a Lego land. As much as all the new buildings are eye candy I feel like the heart of the country is housed in its traditional structures with their tiled roofs with turned up corners. Although Shanghai is a financial center and houses what are now many of the worlds tallest and most famous structures you still find country women selling fruit on the corners and men carrying heavy loads that are secured to a bamboo pole. They walk down busy streets like this transporting goods. Scenes like these are a juxtaposition of the two Chinas that I visited. The old world and the new China finally spreading her wings. You can't help think of the farmer or humble merchant with his bamboo pole laden with heavy goods and attribute this shiny new metropolis to those, like him, who have built China generation after generation with back breaking labor.
My favorite part of our time in Shanghai was walking from our hotel to the Yu Yuan Gardens. We were out of the touristy part of town and walking down a typical road that thrived with life and commerce. There was a market with vendors selling all sort of goods that although exotic to my senses were ordinary to most of its shoppers. I felt that this was my best window into what the people of Shanghai lived like, among their smells, their modest apartment blocks, and the flurry of people with their language and music surrounding me. I felt much more alive here than I did at the Jinmao Tower or the Oriental Pearl. Although, I really love the Oriental Pearl- what a strange but fitting part of the Shanghai skyline- only in Asia.
