World China Shanghai Shanghai

Michele's China Odyssey

Shanghai - Sightseeing Oct 15, 2009

Tried to have a sleep in, and was almost successful, barring the rock hard beds that I just can't lay too long on, and the noisy drilling etc that's going on outside my window. Shanghai is hosting the World Expo next year, and the government is busy re-building everything in the city. And I mean everything - construction is taking place everywhere, that the entire Bund and path along the river is blocked up with ten foot high walls with construction along the entire length. Buildings, roadways, a monorail etc etc are all simultaneously being built, and the work is going on day and night. On the first evening I thought there were fireworks on a number of buildings, but looking closely I realised that it was actually welders etc creating cascades of sparks all night long.

Took a taxi to People's Park and People's Square, areas of lovely gardens around the Shanghai museum. While trying to sit and enjoy the view for a few moments, I was approached firstly by a young couple on holiday from Xian who wanted to practise their English. After talking to them for 5-10 minutes, they offered to show me around, but being a little sceptical and also wanting to do my own thing, I declined and off they went. No soon as I walked ten steps, then another young man on holiday from Wuhan (near the Three Gorges Dam) who was with his Shanghainese friend, also stopped me and wanted to practise his English. His English was already super good, but he was quite interesting, telling me about all the nearby buildings, including the government one that no-one is allowed into. I queried whether school groups could visit when they're learning about politics, but he was quite adament that that doesn't happen. He then also offered to show me around, but I declined that too.

Deciding that sitting still for too long was not a good idea, as it was beginning to look like this was the centre for Chinese people just "hoping" to bump into a foreigner to practise their English on, I thought I'd better get going, even though the weather was gorgeous for siiting and soaking up the warmth and enjoying the blue skies.

I took the last guy's recommendation and visited the Urban Planning Exhibition Centre, which though had become a running joke with our Geckos tour leader for something else, actually turned out to be all about its name "urban planning" and the place was incredible. As you might imagine, the city and surrounds of Shanghai are enormous, so the entire first floor of the building was taken up by the most enormous miniature model of Shanghai that I can't even begin to describe, except that it was HUGE with millions (yes, millions) of tiny little houses and buildings. The amount of man hours to build the model must have been astronomical.

There was also an interesting section on another floor about how the government has demolished entire areas of shanty towns in the past 20 years, building new apartments to house over half a million households that previously lived in this area. It was interesting how they worded it in a positive way - 120,000 received bigger houses than previous and 13,000 moved into better rental apartments. My maths then said that nearly 370,000 were no better off! But there were plenty of photos, and from them it certainly seemed that the actual living conditions are much nicer and cleaner.

The government also has a policy called the "flat top - pitched roof conversion" policy which seemed to mean that mostly poor areas that had buildings with flat roof tops have been deemed ugly and have been demolished, and entire subrubs have been built in their place full of identical looking buildings with pitched rooves (said to fit in with a more Chinese look). I had noticed these huge suburbs the other day from the observation deck of the Jin Mao Tower where there were great suburbs consisting entirely of red rooves, others with blue, green, yellow, etc etc. And we're not talking a few houses built of the same type, but more like the whole size of Campbelltown for each of these subrubs. In all, Shanghai plans to build one new mega city, six smaller cities, 60 new towns and nearly 600 villages - all from scratch! That's what China does well - if they're going to do it, they do it on mammoth proportions. They still have trench toilets all over the place, but they can build entire suburbs in one go!

Another floor was dedicated to the planning of next year's World Expo that will be in Shanghai. I had heard that this display was in a different building, but got my fix here, so didn't need to go and find the other place. I'd never really heard of this type of expo before, but apparantly it's held every four years and cities bid to hold it. China will be the first developing country to ever hold one, so let's hope that the trench toilets are not to be seen by next year :-) Lots of countries, including Australia, will have a huge pavilion to promote their country, in particular, that country's policies and strategies that are in place for sustainability and the environment. In total, I ended up spending two and a half hours in the building, so it was well worth a stop!

By this stage I was hungry, but had to make do with biscuits and almonds from my bag, as walking up the famous west Nanjing Road all I could find were designer stores. Shanghai has a reputation for designer shopping, so I visited a few stores but couldn't even get to a counter to ask prices due to the amount of well-dressed Chinese ladies crowding round to buy purchases. There's really a growing gap here between the rich and poor, particularly evident in Shanghai. As I was just looking for the sake of it, I left them to it.

Next was a visit to the Jade Buddha, a beautiful Buddha brought from Burma, which was absolutely exquisite. Apart from not being able to take photos (there was another one of those vigilant guards), the entire temple complex was over-commercialised, with the strangest set-up I've ever seen of tourist shops actually inside each of the temples right next to the altars - it was totally bizarre. There were lots of monks about as well, but again they looked like they were put there for the tourists - I caught one texting on his mobile, another donging another one with the beater he was supposed to be beating his drum (he got back to it when he saw me watching him), another one pushing another to make him fall over, and yet another in the middle of the prayer session picking at his fingernails and looking decidedly bored! It was all un-monk-like behaviour - I'd expected quiet, contemplative behaviour!

I thought I should really have Chinese food for my last dinner in China, so went to the Tang Fushion Restaurant that was in the same courtyard as the Indian place. I had delicious pork in red wine sauce, very sweet and absolutely falling apart, more like a western dish than Chinese, except for the rice!

Caught a taxi to the Shanghai Acrobatics. I was quite interested to see them, even though I'd seen the Beijing Acrobatics, as I'd heard that these ones are the most famous and have toured all round the world. Some of the acrobatic skills and acts were very similar to ones that we'd seen before - gymnastics through hoops, girls twirling plates (though they didn't drop any), a girl juggling with her feet (but not quite as great as the table juggling girl) etc. However there were a few different acts, like a Chinese magician lady (very clever) and the absolute finale which sets this show apart from any of the others, is five, very crazy motorcycle riders riding inside a spherical metal cage - I was amazed enough when there were three in the cage, but I just couldn't believe it when they added a fourth (crazy) and then a fifth! I was dead sure that I was going to be a witness to an horrific crash! Brilliant!