2000 Newsletter - Shanghai
Flowers on the Bund
Arriving in Shanghai was reminiscent of landing in virtually any American city and guess what - it was another new airport, this time only three months old. Shanghai's history makes it the most suitable city in the country to follow the Hong Kong model.
We had read in the China Daily (English language newspaper) that 99% of Shanghai's sub standard housing had been replaced and that the final 1% should be gone by now. The population had been moved to better accommodation and the opportunity had been taken to improve the roads and build highways in the sky reminiscent of many a sci-fi film. Six lane wide highways exist on three levels, one above another. On the other side of the river is Pudong. Ten years ago, there was virtually nothing there as there wasn't an effective method of crossing such a wide expanse of river. Now there are two tunnels and two bridges and Pudong has a very modern skyline. Another effect of Shanghai's wealth is that people can afford to travel further to work and so suburbs have been built up. All of these have been built in the last ten years.
Pudong as seen from the Bund
A highlight of Shanghai was the visit to the Shanghai Museum. When one visits China, one really recognises quite how far ahead of the West the Chinese were in days gone by. We only had an hour and a half in the museum, but still we saw Mongolian artefacts including a 6,000 year old jade axe head, some beautiful Chinese paintings, numerous bronze bowls, drinking vessels and bells and still we had time to stop for tea.
Once again, that evening we decided to venture outside our hotel for a meal, this time with a group of six others from our party. After quite a bit of searching, we finally settled on a restaurant with English menus. We had ordered and were chatting away, when suddenly there was a scream from one of our party, a mouse had run by her feet. The waiters were quite surprised when we said we wanted to leave. Fortunately, there was a Hard Rock across the road from this restaurant and so we took our refuge in there. By the end of the night we had Hard Rock baseball cap no 2 from China.