Shanghai, I hardly knew thee

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Shanghai Acrobats

The Circle of Death

Shanghai Acrobats
The Circle of Death I was pretty excited about visiting Shanghai. I remember having read some novels that took place in 1800's Shanghai which described the place as a crazy den of thieves, the Chinese version of the wild west, and that had captured my imagination. More recently, I'd heard it compared to New York, but in Chinese terms.

We had yet another rollicking train ride from Xian. Interestingly, on this one, we were placed next to a large group of Chinese high school students who were extremely eager to talk with us and practice their English. They were really fun kids, and were asking all sorts of questions about everything. I never realized that being American could be so exotic. We taught them some card games, and picked them up impressively fast. In return, they taught us some phrases in the Shanghainese dialect.

We got into Shanghai pretty early in the day, and went exploring the Bund and Pudong areas. Amazingly, in 12 years, that area has gone from a residential neighborhood, to a high-powered, skyscraper-laden global financial district. There were even more skyscrapers going up, and the skyline already looked over-crowded. Just crazy amounts of development. The highlight of this excursion was riding the Bund tunnel which crosses the Huangpo river and is a tacky narrated light show that would more appropriately belong in Disney world. Going up the Oriental Pearl tower, one of the tallest in the world was pretty cool too.

That night, we headed to a Chinese acrobats show which is an absolute must if you go to China. What these people did was amazing! No safety nets, and ridiculous amounts of strength, practice, and creativity in nearly every act. There were even a few acts where audience members could have gotten injured underfoot as the acrobats were swinging into the stands from 2 stories above. Check out some of the videos for a taste of what they were like.

The next day, we checked out the Shanghai Old Town, and Yue Garden which were nice. Unfortunately, rain set in so we went to a tea house where we sampled some Jasmine tea, with blossoms that open when you add boiling water - pretty cool. We went to the building where the Chinese Communist Party was formed, and got goose bumps seeing some life like wax figures of Mao and company that looked like they could have gotten up and walked away.

The rain kept up all day on and off, and soaked us during a riverboat tour of the Huangpo river. This also made our nightlife options a bit limited, but we chose wisely to head to the I Love Shanghai bar next to the dock. The place was real cool, and had a whole section of the menu dedicated to Absinthe drinks - try finding that elsewhere.

We spent the rest of our time checking out the French Concession, a part of the city that looks super-European, and other areas that look extremely Chinese. In short, my feel for Shanghai is that each part of the city is completely different from every other part. It's like several cities all rolled into one. I left feeling like I hadn't fully explored the whole city (it's huge, with a population of 14 million). Perhaps I'll be back in the future to discover more, and by then, maybe the acrobats will have figured out how to levitate...

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