What I learned while on Holiday: Shanghai

After Suzhou, we headed to Shanghai. Approximately six years ago or so, there wasn't that much architecture in the area -- it was a quiet fishing village. But after we went there -- it's obvious that the county's been playing catch-up in the development area.

There's a lot of great architecture -- a mix of old European styles and some very modern and futuristic buildings like these:


We did see the Shanghai Museum of Chinese art, but only got about an hour and a half, which wasn't enough to really see everything at the museum. But I think that I can safely say that once you see one piece of jade, you've pretty much seen them all. Not to mention, the National Palace Museum in Taipei has more and better items. That's because during the Cultural Revolution, many of those priceless pieces were taken to Taiwan for fear that Mao would destroy a lot of artifacts.

Other than that, it was a pretty easy time in Shanghai. We saw the Shanghai acrobats (which weren't as cool as Guilin -- they lacked some energy that the Guilin people had). The next day, we took a tour of the Bund, which is one of the busiest ports in China.



Europeans, when they were busy forcing China open for their own reasons, built these beautiful buildings to house their companies and apartments. There's a great hotel in that area known as the Peace Hotel, which was also the place that Jeff, Mom and I had one of the most expensive dinners on the trip -- a $78 dollar fish along with other stuff. I mean, it was good, but that was a pricey meal.

Because most of our time in Shanghai was pretty free, we decided to head to Nanjing Road, which has a lot of shops and is pedestrian only. Because it's three to four miles long, we really didn't see everything.

But one of the funniest moments on the trip was at the Pizza Hut on Nanjing Road. We were sitting at Pizza Hut, getting a soda and some nibbly stuff, and just talking. We had a booth by the entrance and apparently, to get into the restaurant, you have to wait in line outside.

Anyways, we were sitting at Pizza Hut and there was this little boy, his sister and his mom standing in line. He was staring at Jeff, then poked his sister and pointed at Jeff. Then the little boy tugs on his mom's sleeve and points at Jeff.

His mom gives him the international sign of, "It's not polite to point" and the kid stops pointing, but he doesn't stop staring. I thought it was hysterical.

We also had the opportunity to take a boat ride along the river to see the Bund at night. The boat was extremely crowded, but through a little bit of American pushiness, Jeff and I managed to get some good views.



They light up the Bund at night quite nicely -- both the modern, and historic sides are lit up from 7:30-10:30 p.m. The reason for that limited time is because people soon complained about the light pollution coming from that area (and the country began hitting an electricity shortage).

I also met a bunch of people on a tour who seemed a little creeped out by me standing over them and getting photos. But after awhile and some attempts to communicate, I realized that they were wondering if I was cold. I said I wasn't. But it's hard to explain that the reason why is that I'm from Wisconsin, and 50 degree weather isn't cold. They also had fun showing me one of the knick-knacks they bought -- Groucho Marx glasses that had little paper streamers on the ends that would blow out both sides and make a whistling noise. Now I wish I got a picture of that.

After the boat ride, we ate the expensive dinner at the Peace Hotel and grabbed a drink on its rooftop bar. It was awesome. Not a bad way to finish out the trip.