I'll be in Shanghai for 3 weeks, and I'll use this blog to update everyone about the trip. I'm updating it completely by request, so if you want pictures or descriptions, let me know!
According to our guide yesterday, there are three things you need to drive in Shanghai:
Good reactions, good brakes and good luck
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Driving in Shanghai is an interesting experience. People seemingly do whatever they want - sometimes they even ignore lights - and are extremely aggressive. The cab drivers in particular can also be very ... interesting.
Today, ours appeared to be zoning out at the wheel, almost completely stopped at every exit, swerved between lanes, slowed down in open roads and sped up in traffic, and appeared to be falling asleep at the wheel. All in all, it was a memorable drive.
We got out of the cab as soon as we got off the highway.
The city is really interesting. There's a rich, diverse history here that seems to permeate all parts of life, and I took some pictures reflecting what I experienced.
Before I wade into the significant cultural sites, take a look at this picture. No words of mine can accurately depict the size of this city. There are buildings, even skyskrapers, as far as you can see into the hazy distance. Every direction is like this. It's remarkable ... I've never seen anything like it.
First, we visited the Jade Buddha Temple, which has some fascinating iconography, from Buddha statues to inscriptions.
For me, one of the defining aspects of the experience is not the temple's treasures, but the scenery that contrasts it. The city that expands into the horizon in every direction was made that way by development on a monumental scale over the last 20 years. Looking around at the beauties, mysticism and serenity of the temple, I can't help but notice the background from which it contrasts, and to me, the scene and experience was a reflection of the modern age of China.
Our tour guide, who was awesome, by the way.
As another aside, here's a McDonald's. We've found lots of "western" "restaurants" here, including KFC, Papa John's, Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen.
The walk leading up to the Garden was a significant tourist attraction, but it did have some very interesting cultural highlights. The architecture of the buildings was very interesting. So was interacting with the street vendors/beggers, many of them selling all kinds of random toys, and many of them grabbing and following you in an effort to attract your interest. As an aside, there are many poor beggers in these areas, and I could definitely devote a post - and may still - to the economic and lifestyle disparities I've seen throughout the city of Shanghai. Here are some pictures of the walk to the Gardens:
The Yu Gardens were beautiful, and quite serene. Apparently, there are four keys to making a good Chinese garden: natural rocks, water, plants and architecture. That last element refers to the inclusion of man-made housing/structures into gardens, which I think is really cool.
We also spent some time there drinking different types of Chinese teas. We got a view of the city around the garden from the roof of the tea place too.
Finally, we went to the top of the man-made world ... well almost. We visited the World Financial Tower, which has the second highest observation deck in the world, and took a series of elevators and escalators to the very top. There's no bigger structure in the US or China, and looking down on two buildings that are also among the 10 tallest in the world is a pretty surreal experience.
(The image in Google maps shows it under construction, but it was completed about 2 years ago.)
I was able to walk around a few floors from the top, but as hard as I tried, I could not convince myself to stick around very long at the top level, which had a partially glass floor. I managed to let someone else take those photos for me, and got some photos from the few floors below (along with the ground level).
I had someone take a movie on the top floor for me:
Here's a movie of the elevator ride down from Floor 94, over 1500 feet off the ground (the tower overall is measured at 492 meters, or 1614+ feet).
Yesterday, we (all 89 of us!) went to a traditional Chinese restaurant. We were all exhausted from the night before, but we woke up pretty quickly when we got off the bus to go into the restaurant. Looming above us was the Pearl Tower, the third-tallest building in the world. It's a really interesting structure because of the tripod base and the "Space Needle" at the top, but especially because of the lights at night. (The whole area is amazing to see at night).
The restaurant seated us in a room with massive windows overlooking the water, which provided a great view of the skyline and river. But that was not the main attraction of this trip ... The food was very interesting, to say the least.Yes, I tried everything (except the duck tongue), and most of it tasted good. Here's the rundown:
Duck (whole)
Deep-Fried Breaded Octopus
Jellyfish
Mushrooms
Baked Octopus
Duck Tongue
Tripe
Whole Chicken
And when a whole chicken comes out, you know that means someone has to mess with the head ...
This is a marketing campaign used by WCBS 880 NY radio. I'm using it because it creates a nice outline for this post:
Traffic
There's a lot of it here. And as I mentioned before, the roads are anarchical. I compare most places to NYC, and continuing that with Shanghai, this is a more aggressive NYC without pedestrian right-of-way. Cars cut one another off (forget about signaling) and barrel though walk lights without regard for pedestrians. The pedestrians are equally aggressive, but are clearly aware that no vehicle - bus, truck, car or bike - will stop for them.
There are a lot of bikes here, and some small bike lanes. The trains run above the roads and are as modern, if not moreso, than U.S. trains (which is no surprise). I don't have any pictures for this post, so I'll save a discussion of the roadways and buildings for a day when I have pictures. I went to a mall and a park the other day, so I'll try to get those pictures from someone else since I didn't have my camera. If you're into shopping, that post will be for you.
Weather
So far, We've had one sunny, one cloudy and one rainy day. It has been in the 70s or 80s morning through night, and it is very humid. Not Amazon humid I'm sure, but it's bad enough that even the hotel sheets and air are a little damp, and outside - even in the cooler areas - it can be very difficult to bare. The notion of walking around without sweating is pretty laughable to us all at this point.
8s ... and 4s
The number 8 is similar to a Chinese word for "goodbye," but more importantly, apparently the number is good luck. In fact, phone numbers cost more to buy when they have more 8s in them! The opposite is true of the number 4, since that number is associated with death.
The first place I explored was the store next to the hotel, Tesco. Tesco (UK origin) is popular around the world, and is essentially a Wal-Mart. Of course, this is Shanghai, not the US, so there are some differences ...
The location of the store is under a gymnastics center. This is very telling for two reasons: Shanghai is a complete conglomeration of buildings/structures and functions, very much like NYC; and yes, gymnastics is popular in China.
Inside, the store was pretty chaotic. Much like any other store, you grab a cart and walk down the organized aisles. Good luck finding these easily noticeable items in Wal-Mart though:
A meat/poulry section that's not behind glass, and open to all consumers to pick through
And that's just the food. This store also has a Sports-Authority-like section, a section of scooters, a Toys-'R-Us-like section and an electronics section, among others. One interesting note about the electronics section is that it's really easy to buy cell phones here. You can just walk up to the counter, buy a phone, and immediately connect to the China Mobile network, which is a state-run monopoly of the cell phone service. Verizon service works here too, by the way.
That leads me to two of my favorite things about being in China.
First, the knock-offs. Fake iPod. Fake Wii. If it's popular, there's a fake-out-China version.
Second, the exchange rate and pricing. The exchange rate here is roughly 7-to-1, and on top of that, among the small sample of items I've seen, prices are roughly 20-40 percent cheaper than in the U.S. ... even after adjusting for the exchange rate.
After 23 hours of travel, I finally arrived at the hotel last night. I'll make my next post about my first day of exploration. I'll stick to the trip itself for this one ...
I am now 12 hours ahead. So, if you're reading this at 1:30pm ET, it's 1:30am, the next day, in Shanghai.
The flying parts of the trip were easier than I anticipated. If movies and books occupy you, than you can survive without much trouble. Just make sure you can sleep on the plane, because I couldn't, and consequently, after 24 hours without sleep and only a few hours of sleep the night before, I was pretty exhausted when I got to my room. I watched the new Star Trek and Wolverine movies, read, and watched the live footage of a really cool camera that showed a bird's eye view - on demand - from the plane looking down, as well as a front-facing view when the plane was taking off and landing.
I flew Japan Airlines for both trips, and revceived good service and good food. There wasn't much assistance for non-Japanese speakers, but that wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal - at least at the time - was that there were a few health scares with other passengers on both plane rides (I won't elaborate here). I'm happy to report, however, that my whole class arrived healthy and without quarantine issues.
After we gathered all our luggage (no issues there either, thankfully), we took a shuttle to the hotel in downtown Shanghai. Shanghai driving may require a post of its own, but the one word I would use to describe it is "lawless."
Here's a shot I took while we were driving through the middle of the city to the hotel. In my next post, I'll describe the city as I've seen it so far, but the sheer size is a sight to behold.
There are skyscrapers packed with houses as far as you can see in every direction, with shiny new buildings and run-down old ones crammed together. The highway system snakes throughout the city, anywhere from 30 to hundreds of feet off the ground, and it dominates the scene unlike any other I have ever seen in the US or Europe. (Again, I'll elaborate more on this in another post.)
I'm on the 20th floor of the hotel, and from here, you also get a sense of the disparity between the "old" city and the "new" one. Shanghai (wikipedia) has been under a historic amount of development for over a decade now, and it's easy to notice just by looking up from the street or out a window, since you won't have trouble finding a crane or construction site.
That's all for now. Today we went exploring for awhile, so I'll have a much more detailed post of the city as I've seen it, tomorrow, after the first day of training.
