SHANGHAI: Urban Oasis (Day 14)

An afternoon at Yu Garden in Shanghai.

Pearl TV Tower in the distance

88-Storey Jinmao Tower in the distance

SHANGHAI: Where the People Meet (Days 10 & 11)

Meeting Place

Roundabout Overpass at Wujiaochang, Shanghai

A Chinese Minority Tribe Canoe

Red Dragon

A Wall of Buddha

1920s Architecture, The Bund

SHANGHAI: Antiques and a Frozen Watermelon (Day 9)

the frozen watermelon!!

SHANGHAI: Model vs Reality (Day 7)

After Friday's morning class, we went over to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. It was essentially government propaganda promoting redevelopment of the metropolis.

A gigantic display model of Shanghai to-be

View of reality outside the exhibition hall

What better thing can we do on a Friday afternoon than to go to a 7-storey bookstore after visiting an urban planning museum (especially for a geography arts student like myself)? Okay, I admit that we have no life and we were there for a few hours before we went to eat a Japanese dinner nearby (cheap but fairly expensive by Shanghai commoners' standards).

Japanese ramen (noodles) and gyoza (friend dumplings)

SHANGHAI: Lu Xun Park and Area (Day 6)

As usual, after class and lunch we went out to discover another area of Shanghai. This time, the park named after Lu Xun, a famous writer of contemporary China. (By the way, I've decided to cut down further on the text from here on.)

A billboard showing bus stop and route information

Recently completed Metro Line 3 with construction work below

Lake in Lu Xun Park, dedicated to a famous Chinese writer

Old men gather to play board games under the shades

Front of Lu Xun Memorial Hall

Grass patch in front of Lu Xun Memorial Hall;
"Do not enter while grass is under maintenance"

Street in an older district near Lu Xun Park

A lane with residential buildings off of the main street

Busy yet narrow thoroughfare

Keeping traffic in order with a whistle

A very Chinese church

Beauties from East and West

SHANGHAI: Wandering down Nanjing Road East (Day 3 + 4)

After Mandarin class in the morning, we (the 10 of us who stuck together in a group everywhere we went) went down to the heart of Shanghai. We got off at the subway stop at People's Square (人民廣場) and made our way down Nanjing Road East.

People's Square

Nanjing Road East (南京東路) is a long street lined with shops on both sides closed off from vehicular traffic (except for the shuttle train that runs on the road from end to end).

Looking east from Nanjing Road East

Looking west from Nanjing Road East

Careful! Bicycles crosses Nangjing Road East

Old Shanghai on Nangjing Road East?

Busy, busy, busy. That was my first impression of this important artery in Shanghai. People seemed to have converged from all directions onto this road and disappearing into the sea of crowds, making me feel lost and excited at the same time.

Foods of the day. After class lunch, pork with a thick sauce on rice, at a restaurant near the accommodation we stayed at (approx. 15 RMB).

Inexpensive, delicious lunch (about 15 RMB) at restaurant near accommodation

Afternoon snack that turned into an early dinner. Hot, steamed dumplings in the famous store of Nanxiang (南翔) at the Yu Gardens (豫園) area.

A stack of xiaolungbao (steamed dumplings)

The next evening (Tuesday night 2006-07-11), we hung out at a cafe (decorated in Tibetan style) just outside the accommodation...to register for our Fall 2006 courses, how saddening.

"Tibetan-style" Cafe near accommodation

SHANGHAI: Venturing out to Shanghai Station (Day 2)

First things first...our accommodation. I shared an apartment flat with three others located in Yangpu District (楊浦區). There's three rooms in the flat and it was really spacious...what a surprise to see in a Chinese city! It had a solarium for hanging laundry and a very open view.

view from the apartment in Yangpu District, Shanghai

The flat was fairly dusty though. It seemed that nobody has lived there for a while. But we found out later that this dust came from somewhere all the time, and no matter how much we swept (yes, we swept, or technically I did) the dust kept coming back. The shower wouldn't drain properly and we had to clean it out with our hands...luckily there were rubber gloves to use. We had a toilet overflow once and had to call someone to fix it (phew, it wasn't the BIG BUSINESS when it happened).

We decided to take a walk on campus in a massive group of about ten and to find lunch in the cafeteria. It was hot. Everyone was complaining about the heat. But I was still up with my camera pointing in every direction when I came across this "stone tomb":

This "tomb" is actually a sign...saying "Danger! There are electrical wires underneath." Very interesting and unique, I thought...

We found out when we got to the cafeteria that we couldn't eat there because you need to prepay using a student card...so...our idea of super cheap food melts there and then (It was really cheap you can get a meal for three RMB.)

We left the campus and found a Western-style cafe to lunch in (much more expensive...about 25 RMB = $4...which is still not even comparable to standards here), cooled down, re-energized and got going again. I came up with the idea of going to the "Tourist Centre" (that was supposed to exist according to my Lonely Planet guide) at the Shanghai Station.

We decided to go local and went for transit...first we had to get to the metro station at Jiangwan Town (江灣鎮). After figuring out what those bus stop signs mean we took the 713 bus there...it took only about five minutes. We figured though that the station was a bit too far to walk to (especially under the heat). When we got off the bus, we realized that the station was actually on the other side of the avenue...a wide avenue...and we had to half-jaywalk it since motorists and pedestrians alike did not fully obey the traffic signals. It was a total challenge.

There...as you can see we made it onto the train station platform. This station is the terminus station so any trains coming in are empty with all the seats available to you. It will probably seem that getting a seat is no problem when you see signs beneath you feet indicating where to line up properly. Until you realize that this is really a false illusion when...

...the train arrives and people scramble onto the train like this is the last train to ever run in the history of mankind...and fighting for a seat like fighting over food for a hungry family. I think we ended up with a seat. And so the journey to the city center begins...


Shanghai Station! The main terminal facing a large plaza. This is the south side, the modern side, the civilized side, the good side. If you happen to be on the north side...you would see a the backside of the same station, only older, uglier and more chaotic.

We gave up on finding the tourist office (it was nowhere to be located) and decided to find a place to buy the prepaid phone card for cell phones. After asking directions at the kiosk shop of hotel, we found our way to a building that sells electronic products and found a shop that sells them, starting at 50RMB each. It was actually enough to last for our month's stay there. The store owners let us chose our numbers (according to the back of the envelope of the card) but it was pretty pointless since the phone numbers are 13 digits...none of which will be easy to remember anyway.

Finished with our errands, we whizzed our way through the underground mall which connected the Shanghai Station with the metro line that would bring us back to our place.

Line 3 (三號線) platform and the view from it...a newer Shanghai built against the older one.

Later that night, we headed out to hunt for our first meal. After a lot of picking and choosing, we finally sat down at this restaurant that served mainly grilled meat. We ordered many skewers...and some of us added a bowl of noodles just to fill up. Very delicious and cheap.