Shanghai

What a city; big, dirty, hectic, scenic, in one word overwhelming. As written we took a taxi from the airport. I have had scary drivers before, but here they are all equal, there are no rules, not for them nor for pedestrians. Amazing I did not see any accidents. There are also many mopeds, electrical, so you do not hear them and they all tend to use no lights at night, so again very terrifying ....

It took some time to find the hotel, located in the heart of the city.

I was not tired at all, so I said to myself, use the day and got out right again. I asked what to see and especially the Bund with the river Huangpu (Shanghai sits on the Yangtze River Delta) and the Yuyuan Garden.

The Yuyuan Garden is a special "silent" part in the City. Well silent because there are no cars, but there hundreds of visitors. This is the case in the complete city, everywhere it is hectic. There are more then 1 B Chinese, well officially here only 20 M, but seems to be muich more ....

From Wikipedia about Yuyuan Garden:

Yuyuan Garden (Simplified Chinese: 豫园; Traditional Chinese: 豫園; Pinyin: Yùyuán), located in the center of the Old City in Shanghai, China, is considered one of the four finest Chinese gardens.

The garden was reportedly first established in 1559 as a private garden created by Pan Yunduan, who spent almost 20 years building a garden to please his father Pan En, a high-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty, during his father's old age. Over the years, the gardens fell into disrepair until about 1760 when bought by merchants, then suffered extensive damage in the 19th century. In 1842, during the Opium Wars, the British army occupied the Town God Temple for five days. During the Taiping Rebellion the gardens were occupied by imperial troops, and damaged again by the Japanese in 1942. They were repaired by the Shanghai government from 1956-1961, opened to the public in 1961, and declared a national monument in 1982.

The tempels are very nice, also the many fish (Gold Fish) in the pools are amazing. I will add pictures later in the official blog www.hpkok.com.



What about these Chinese .... well most do not speak English, in the hotel some words, but still difficult to understand. The taxi drivers do NOT speak English nor can read a map, so you have to show them the name in Chinese. Eventually you get there :-).

After my first stop I went to the Bund.

From Wikipedia:

The word "Bund" means an embankment or an embanked quay, and comes from the Urdu word band, meaning an embankment, levee or dam (a cognate of English terms, bind and band, German term, bund, etc.). "Bund" is pronounced to rhyme with "fund". The term was brought to India (where it came to be pronounced as "bund") by either the Mughals in at the beginning of the 16th century, or possibly, by the Baghdadi Jews like the family of David Sassoon, and thence to Shanghai by the family of Victor Sassoon. There are many "bands" to be found in Baghdad, even today. There are numerous sites in India, China, and Japan which are called "bunds". However, "The Bund" as a proper noun almost invariably refers to this stretch of embanked riverfront in Shanghai.

There are not a lot of tourists, so I am asked many times to buy, from Postcards to toys and other "stupid" stuff. So they get me so far to buy a trip on the river. That was something I wanted to do anyway, so no harm done. It is a rather humid day, so viewing the Skylline from the windy boat is a welcome change. On the boat I am the only foreigner. Chinese are rather outspoken, especially in groups, so it is not really quiet, but still cosey and it gives me an atmosphere of being for the first time of my life in a "new" country, I have seen many though.

Wandering around after the boat trip is bringing me to several interesting outdoor markets places. I did not see any dog nor cat, but here you see all kinds of animals, from small snakes, frogs, strange fish and some other animals I have never seen before. And yes those are not for keeping at home, it's all for eating. The skin of many is stripped at the market place itself, you want it fresh, you get it fresh :-).



Eating out is also something special, you smell the food from far, some smell is unbearable ... I still smell it now typing this entry.
The taste (not from the above) is though very good and I tried several smaller dishes, from pastry, bread, to meat and fish. It's is really an outdoor life, everything you can get on the streets. I also bough me a special flute for my sister, not so sure it will live my travel though, as qaulity seems not so good.

The city and the people are divided into poor and rich, also in the shops, from the exquisity Swarowsky to a one table restaurant, where to eat for a few cents it's all there, sitting almost aside each other. Srange but interesting atmosphere. There are also many beggars, mostly very young kids sent by their parents. Difficult to not give, or to get rid of them. Seems almost no one is giving money.

I had an arrangment with this Norwegian guy later that evening
and went out again at 22.00. I checked the street he mentioned. Many bars, many females, I was asked for a massage several times, so I left if fast ... the guy did not call me, so he might have been busy after all .... I ended up in a nice Blues bar.

The next morning I had a coffee at one of the many coffe bars. Why is this still not starting really in Amsterdam, we do have many coffee shops, but you do not go there to get a good cup of coffee.

After the coffee I took me a taxi again to the Pudong international airport. Again the taxi driver did not speak any English and I thought he took the wrong road and I behaved a bit angry, it helped and he stopped the meter 10 Km before the airport. Paying even less then going into town, so it worked :-).

Up to another 11 hours flight ... New Zealand here I come.