Shanghai at last!

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Hi Everyone,

I want to tell you about my two-day visit to Shanghai. Whenever Shanghai is mentioned in Beijing it always seems to be with a sort of reverence, almost like some families relate to the rebellious offspring who has become a great success.

Thank God for Wikipedia since not many of us know the details given here:

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and with over 17.8 million people. (Beijing is a paltry 11.7 million.) It is a major financial centre and the busiest container port in the world. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River on the East China Sea, roughly equidistant from Beijing and Hong Kong.

"Once a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to its favourable port location. It was one of the cities opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking which allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement. By the end of the 19^th Cen. Europeans and Christians had quite a foothold. The city flourished as a centre of commerce between east and west, and became the undisputed financial hub of the Asia Pacific in the 1930s. Citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work during these decades.

In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Russians and Russian Jews fled the newly established Soviet Union and took up residence in Shanghai. These Shanghai Russians constituted the second-largest foreign community. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners. In the 1930s, some 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city. The Jews lived side-by-side in a designated area called Shanghai Ghetto and formed a vibrant community. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, the city's international influence declined. In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city. It has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of mainland China. The city's location on the flat alluvial plain has meant that new skyscrapers must be built with deep concrete piles to stop them from sinking into the soft ground.

Shanghai has the highest percentage of Catholics in mainland China and, since 1996, the greatest number of registered Christian Protestant churches.

In 2010, Shanghai took the top spot in the latest round of the most comprehensive assessment of the world’s state schools. According to Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, Shanghai students, including migrant children, scored highest in every aspect (Math, Reading and Science) in the world. The study also claimed that public-funded schools in Shanghai have the highest educational quality in the world.

Shanghai also has the world's most extensive network of urban bus routes, with nearly one thousand bus lines, operated by numerous transportation companies. The system includes the world's oldest trolleybus system. Bus fare normally costs 2 RMB/20cents. There is also the Maglev train which runs from a Metro stop to Pudong International Airport is a magnetic levitation train and when it opened in 2004 it was the world’s first high-speed magnetic levitation train. With top speed of 431km/hr (268mph) it is the world’s fastest train, faster than the TGV or the new Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train. It takes 7minutes 20seconds to go 30km/18.6miles." (It only runs during the day so I didn’t take it when I went to Pudong Airport for my flight.)


OK, enough Wikepedia.


I left Beijing at 2:00pm on Friday and travelled to Shanghai first-class on the high-speed train. The journey took 4 3/4 hours and most of the time it was travelling 305 – 310km/hour. (There is a screen showing the current time and speed.) First class cost 950RMB one-way compared to 550RMB for 2^nd class. It wasn’t worth double the price for a complimentary bottle of juice and more leg room. The first class seats on the buses in Argentina were far more comfortable. Luckily I hadn’t paid for the ticket because I had to attend a business meeting at the start of my visit.

A friend came with me to Shanghai and we had booked the Mingtown Youth Hostel online. It was a two-minute walk from the People’s Park/Renmin metro station. The hostel was fabulous. The twin room had an ensuite bathroom, semi-soft beds, a TV and electric kettle for €12 each per night. There was a bar/lounge/common room with free WiFi, a full meal service, a pool table and a dvd facility upstairs. The hostel design was such that the rooms were away from the common areas and very quiet. Top marks!!

Once settled, the first thing we had to do was to walk down the famous, bustling Nanjing Dong Lu (East St.) which is the busiest street in Shanghai. It was brightly lit by neon signs and nobody does bling like the Chinese. Shanghai people also enjoy street dancing and some were in full swing to the music from a ghetto blaster. We walked to The Bund waterfront area along the Huangpu River to see Shanghai by night. It was amazing! The skyscrapers were all floodlit in different ways to distinguish them and the effect was stunning.

We explored the Fairmont Peace Hotel which is famous for its art deco interior. They have carefully preserved elements of its 1920’s and 1930’s heyday. Wow! We were immediately transported back to Shanghai in its heyday and could imagine the stylish hotel guests of that era swanning through the lobby and socialising in the lounges. The 10^th Floor used to be Vidal Sassoon’s apartments.

The next morning we began our sightseeing by taking the metro across to the Pudong Financial Area. There were so many super-tall buildings. The Oriental Pearl TV Tower doesn’t officially count as a building but it is beautiful. We had wanted to have a view from the World’s Tallest Observation Deck on the 88^th Floor of the Jin Mao Tower. It used to be China’s tallest building until 2007 when the neighbouring World Financial Centre was completed. It has an observation deck on the 101^st Floor. What to do? We decided to go up the Jin Mao Tower that houses offices and the Grand Hyatt Hotel and we were not disappointed. The weather was quite clear so we had some wonderful views of the city below. We really enjoyed watching the window cleaners suspended midway on the front of the Financial Centre. We didn’t envy them their job. We could see the cranes of the Shanghai Tower under construction below. When it is completed it will be even higher than the World Financial Centre. A fellow tourist pointed out that the use of cranes is now old-fashioned, that the new “Highest Building” in Dubai was built without cranes, they pumped the cement mix up through pipes (or something). This is all too much for yours truly who prefers to have her feet on terra firma.

We spent two or three hours in the Pudong area and then took the metro westward to the former French Concession. I had thought that this area had many examples of French architecture, something like we had seen in Tianjin. But the real story seems to be that although the French police controlled this area, it was mostly inhabited by Jews and White Russians.

The first meeting and founding of the Chinese Communist Party was held here in 1921. Mao was not there but Chinese history was revised on that point to suit the CCP 90^th Anniversary celebrations last year. Political meetings were forbidden in the French Concession and that one was discovered by a French policeman who drove them out and forced them to reconvene elsewhere later. Mao made it to later meetings.


We saw the homes of former Communist Party bosses, poets and artists who lived in the area in later years. The neighbourhood streets were tree-lined and the houses two-storey. It didn’t seem like we were in China at all where urban planning has meant wide treeless streets lined with concrete apartment blocks at least four storeys high. We finished our stroll at the fabulous new library where visitors only have to stand in the front hall to read any of twenty daily Chinese newspapers on huge touchscreens. I find that the speed of IT progress is breathtaking.


On the way back to the hostel we went a longer route from the metro to the hostel so we could check out the huge Urban Planning Centre and the superb Grand Theatre. We didn’t actually see the Concert Hall, so that is one for next time. There was a ballet performance at the Grand Theatre hat evening with tickets for 80RMB/€8, but after a full day of sightseeing we both felt too tired to stay awake through a performance.


That evening we explored the narrow side streets adjacent to our hostel looking for an interesting restaurant. We passed a man and a woman hacking up huge sides of meat on a table outside a Uyghur (Muslim Chinese) restaurant. We found a nice Chinese restaurant and were immediately charmed by our enthusiastic teenaged waitress. She was as cute as a button and, remarkably, she had the patience to let me ask questions and order our dishes in Mandarin. Her big brother seemed to be the head waiter and the chef may have been her mother. When the dinner was served the chef/mother came out with a bowl of herbs and spices, ready to hear our appraisals and adjust the flavourings if necessary. We had great fun!

As we walked back to the hostel we noticed that the residents had put their small, knotted bags of garbage in the gutters, to be collected by the bin man during the night. Ructions arose when a lazy second-floor tenant threw her bag of garbage out the window, hitting a woman passerby!

Back at the hostel we were relaxing and emailing in the lounge when a young man started asking me about my travel history. Eduardo explained that he was from Brazil and travelling in China while doing interviews for his anthropology PhD thesis on the lives and motivations of backpackers. He asked if he could interview me but I said that, since it was nearly midnight, he would have to wait until about 5:00pm the next day. He seemed happy enough with that.

On our second and last full day in Shanghai we decided to begin by visiting the Shanghai Museum which was in People’s Park and very near our hostel. This is a very modern museum and definitely one I will go back to. I don’t usually visit museums and when I do I have seen enough after two hours maximum. However I really wanted to see the bronze exhibition and maybe some of the sculptures and ceramics. The entrance fee was only 30RMB/€3. I rented an audio guide that described about 10 – 15%!o(MISSING)f the exhibits, which was just about right. I was amazed that visitors were allowed to take photos of the exhibits so I took a few myself.

We had to curtail our visit to the museum so that we could spend time walking around the Old City. It was also within walking distance of our hostel.

Made into a rounded walled city in 1553 to fend off Japanese pirates, the Old Town of Shanghai displays the richness of Ming and Qing architecture and the vibrancy of traditional Shanghai street life. Some call this Shanghai's "Chinatown" because of the traditional atmosphere. Considered unhealthily overcrowded, dirty and smelly by foreigners during the concession era, this was the one place that the Chinese could call their own in Shanghai. Almost all of the city walls have since been removed.

Every guide book says not to miss the Yu (or Yuyuan) Garden so we had to see it. This is a walled garden right in the middle of the old city. There are twisting walkways through rock gardens, beautiful old homes and tea houses encircled by water ponds with goldfish, a huge piece of yellow jade, and amazing roof ornamentations. I was so delighted with these mini-sculptures I must have taken a few dozen photos.

When we left the Old Town we were a half-hour late returning to the hostel to meet the Brazilian student who wanted to interview me. Luckily he had about 40 minutes before he had to leave for the Peking Opera. Apart from the obvious questions he asked some that I didn’t really have answers for. For example, what do I do now when I’m travelling that I didn’t do when I was younger, and vice versa. I don’t know.

Then he asked me what was the worst thing that ever happened and I was really stumped. I said that I have never been robbed or mugged and never had any broken bones so I have been quite lucky. I forgot about the time that I fell off the mountain in Nepal. It was only today that I remembered the dengue fever in Sri Lanka. I’d say that was the Worst Ever, especially because it upset my 13-year-old son’s trip. But, as they say, no one died.

Once the interview was completed and the Brazilian had left for the opera, for the last evening in Shanghai we went back down the narrow streets to the small Uyghur restaurant we had spotted the night before. One of the cooks has that unique skill of twisting and stretching dough to make noodles. He does so in the window, then slides open the window and plops the noodles into a large pot of boiling broth out front. It’s very hard to get a photo, he is so dextrous. Our dinner was very nice. The combination of beef, potatoes and vegetables in one dish and Chinese broccoli in the other was delicious. The unique ambiance of the small Uyghur cafe added to our collection of Shanghai memories.

I have got used to the fact that Chinese restaurants do not serve desserts. However it was my friend’s Birthday so we had to find a cake shop and slices of different fancy cakes. The Chinese have very nice bakeries and often serve the desserts with “milky tea” of different flavours from ginger to toffee. It was a lovely way to close the visit to Shanghai.

I then had to hustle back to the hostel to pick up my wheelie and head off on the metro to Pudong Airport and from there to the Philippines.

Cheers, Sheila

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Photos

Dancing Queen
Nanjing Lu

amazing architecture!
Pudong Financial District

skyline & Huangpu River
from observation deck

buffalo
sculptures on the lid of a pot, Museum

Tea House, Yuyuan Garden
in the Old City

roof sculptures
Yuyuan Garden

Comments

[deleted_49612]

:)
I had tea, in that building, when I was in Shanghai, around 14 years ago. It is really beautiful. Apparently, a queen of England once had tea there too. :)