Shanghai Skyline

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The city of Shanghai has several things that give it a unique character. The Bund is the strip of river front, the embankment, where there is a row of early 20th century buildings constructed in a European architectural style. It is this early skyline that gave rise to the descriptive saying of 'Paris of the East.'

In the last ten to fifteen years a modern architectural skyline has developed on the opposite bank of the Huangpo river. This skyline offers one of the best light shows in the world rivaling Las Vegas, Tokyo, Time Square and any others.

The Shanghai Museum is a jewel box of pleasures. It is manageable in size, easy to navigate, with galleries on a human scale. It is lacking strength and depth with the Tibetan objects but more than makes up for it with the Chinese painting gallery which is almost overwhelming. On the ground floor there are two galleries. The early Chinese bronze vessel display is perhaps the finest anywhere and the gallery of early Buddhist stone sculpture offers a rich variety of styles, regions and time periods.

The Peace Hotel, formerly the Cathay Hotel, looks and feels like the Vancouver Hotel, Banff Springs Hotel, and many of the other early Canadian Pacific railway hotels. It is worth visiting the rooftop restaurant, the Jazz bar, or just the bathrooms.

The old side streets that were filled with shops, bakeries, restaurants and tea shops are getting rarer to find but they are still there - waiting.

These are just a few well known examples of what can be experienced in Shanghai which really is the 'jewel of the orient.'

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