SHANGHAI DAY 1

DAY 53 — February 26, 2017 — Shanghai, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Shanghai.  Wow!  This is not the Communist China I was expecting. Beijing was a big old bureaucratic city, reminiscent of many other capital cities I have visited.  Shanghai is a whole different story.   We could feel the difference as soon as we got off the ship.  This is one  exciting and vibrant city with new cars – lots of them -- breathtakingly modern skyscrapers – lots of them – an abundance of luxury stores and boutiques, and well-dressed people scurrying everywhere.  It could have been any large modern western city – only cleaner.

Just 25 years ago, the area that modern-day Shanghai occupies was farmland.  Today it is China’s largest city with almost 25 million people, one of the busiest ports in the world, and quickly becoming a leading world financial center.

Our ship was docked on the Huang Po River just minutes from downtown and we couldn’t wait to get started exploring it.

We decided to try one of the Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus tours.  We have done this in other cities and found it can be an easy way to get a quick feel for a city and learn which places you might want to explore further.  The company that runs the Big Bus Tour of Shanghai (and many other places including Budapest, Washington D.C. and Hong Kong} also throws in complimentary tickets to a variety of popular attractions.  This turned out to be a big plus.  The double decker bus also provides an island narration in five different languages so you get a good sense of where you are and what you are seeing.

The Jin Mao Tower (left), once the tallest in the city, is now dwarfed by its new neighbors.

Our first stop was the Jin Mao Tower for an “overview” of the city.  We had trouble finding the right place because there are three buildings offering observation decks all clustered together.  But we finally figured out which one to go to with the help of some very nice locals.  An elevator whisked us up to the 88th floor and we could look out in all directions.  The photos through the windows make it look a little foggier than it actually was. 

A group of teenagers were getting ready to have their photos taken while they dangled off the side of the building on harnesses.  It looked like it would be just too much fun for us so we passed on the opportunity.

Traffic circles in downtown Shanghai are made simpler by having pedestrian walkways circling around overhead.  It is an amazingly simple idea that works well.  This lovely traffic/pedestrian circle is in front of a heavily visited area full of stores, restaurants, and local attractions.

Pedestrians access the walking circle via stairs or escalators.

  

Shanghai’s iconic Oriental Pearl Tower sits right next to another worldwide icon.  But do you think I could find a Disney Shanghai t-shirt (or anything) in this store?  Of course not. Only USA logo merchandise sold here.   

River Cruise

We were in the Oriental Pearl Tower area for our next activity:  a boat ride on the Huang Po River that runs through Shanghai.  We expected a ferry or some other sort of common tourist boat but, no.  Instead, we and 6 other passengers who had also purchased the Big Bus Shanghai Tour boarded a 35’ cabin cruiser and spent an hour having the most amazing ride seeing the city again, this time from the water in a small boat.

Cruising past our cruise ship in its berth on the river in Shanghai.

Shanghai at Night

And then our day got even better as evening approached and all the lights of the Shanghai riverfront started coming on.  It was a Sunday, and family and friends (and tourists) were all out along the Bund, the walkway that stretches for miles along the river.  From our experience in Ann Arbor on Saturdays in the fall, we estimated the gathering crowd to eventually swell to over 50,000 people.  Other things we observed:  there was no litter, no panhandlers, no one selling ANYTHING.  Everyone – even the littlest kids -- just seemed happy to be out there

Thousands of people young and old were out on a chilly night in February to see the beautiful display of lights in their beautiful city.

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The lights are not projected on to the buildings.  These amazing displays are all done with LED lights built into the buildings.

The City side of the Bund was not to be outdone by the waterfront.  These colonial era buildings were beautifully lit as well. 

Everywhere I looked in Shanghai, all I could think was, “Wait, this is China?”  In my travels on this trip through Korea, Japan, and China so far, I am realizing over and over how much my education is lacking and wondering why I didn’t do more about that.

Tomorrow:  Old Shanghai