Richard Halverstadt: July 16, 2011: China Day 6

July 16, 2011: Tina and Janice picked me up as promised and we first went to the Yu Garden which was built during the reign of Ming Emperor Jiajing in 1559 as the private garden of Pan Yunduan. Although in the middle of an urban part of the city, the garden was rather large (over two hectares) and had a number of very interesting features.

Yu Garden

Yu Garden - interesting burl furniture

Yu Garden

After the Yu Garden, we visited all the shops nearby. The streets were lined with street after street of nicely designed shops and a famous bridge that zigzagged across a small lake:

Tina and Janice

Note tallest building in Shanghai in distance

Tina and Janice insisted that I take a look at the peep show where I peered through some holes and saw scenes of a Chinese story that the gentleman recited as he changed the scenes. It reminded me of the peep shows that I saw when I was a small boy in amusement parks.

Peep Show

After the Yu Garden, we went for lunch in a nice Chinese restaurant that was quite old.

Lunch with Tina and Janice

After lunch, we drove to a temple. On the way I took pictures of some interesting old buildings, one the export center built long ago:

Old Shanghai Export Center

Then we went to Jing'an Temple which was built in 247 AD during the Three Kingdoms Era. It eventually became one of the national key temples of Han Buddhism.

Jing'An Temple

After Jing'An Temple, we went to the Fu Yu (Jade) Temple:

Fu Yu (Jade) Temple

Fu Yu (Jade) Temple -monks at a meeting

Fu Yu (Jade) Temple

From the Fu Yu Temple, we drove to the shopping district of Shanghai. On the way, I saw that some parts of Shanghai hadn't changed much from when I was last there in 1980:

The shopping district was quite busy with shoppers. There were all sorts of interesting buildings, many of them very modern:

Fish tank in display window of department store

As we approached the Bund, I could see the Oriental Pearl Tower in the distance:

Oriental Pearl Tower

Before exploring the Bund, we went into a very exclusive hotel:

The view of the Bund was spectacular. I couldn't believe how much Shanghai had changed in the 31 years I had last been there:

After walking along the Bund for quite a while, we drove across a very famous bridge that has become the prop for many a newly married couple:

Wei Bai Du Bridge

From the bridge, I could see a monument:

Since we wanted to go in the Oriental Pearl Tower after dark when all the lights are on, we decided to have dinner first. We ended up at a Chinese style shabu shabu type restaurant:

After dinner we walked to the Oriental Pearl Tower. This tower is 468 meters high and is the highest TV tower in Asia and the third highest in the world.

Oriental Pearl Tower

The tower was lit up for the night and there was a variety show being held on a stage at the base of the tower. The acts were quite good. We saw a Chinese girl doing all sorts of amazing acrobatic moves balancing her whole body upside down on one hand, etc. Then there were some Spanish calypso dancers and two girls playing the hula hoop:

Going up the tower was a real adventure:

Oriental Pearl Tower

The views from the top were beyond words. Unfortunately, my pictures are not clear but you can get an idea of what we saw from them:

Oriental Pearl Tower

Oriental Pearl Tower - view of tallest building in Shanghai

Oriental Pearl Tower

Oriental Pearl Tower - note glass floor

Here's a picture of the elevator shaft for the elevator we took going back down:

Oriental Pearl Tower

After then it was time to drive home:

Tallest building in Shanghai

Chinese driving: I've found the driving in China to be similar to the driving of other Asian countries:

There's a four lane road going across the Wai Bai Du Bridge. There's a lot of traffic on this bridge and there's a traffic light at the end of the bridge. These traffic lights turn red and green for one minute at a time (There's a countdown clock that shows this.) While I was exploring this bridge, Tina was in her car stopped at the traffic light waiting for Janice and me to cross the street to get into the car. We were held up by the light but Tina continued waiting for us at the light even though it had changed green. I tried to tell her to turn the corner and wait for us there but she didn't and thus held up the traffic behind her on the bridge because she refused to drive through the green light. This of course caused a traffic jam and a lot of angry drivers behind her, but nevertheless she remained there. Tina is not the only driver who behaves this way.
A bus I was on was stopped at a red light four cars behind the light. Because the red light was so long and our driver wanted to turn right while the other cars were going to go straight (at least the first car was), our bus driver pulled around all four cars in the oncoming lane to make the right turn before (thankfully) the red light turned green. Again, not an uncommon practice -- no passing lines in the highway seem to be "suggestions" only in China. I never did see a policeman on any of the roads while I was in China...
As was true in Cambodia, speed limits appear to be only suggestions. It was always an adventure driving in a car or bus in China wrt speed.
As for pedestrians, "Walk" signs and "Do not Walk" signs seem to be suggestions only. In fact I wonder if people even pay attention to them at all. There were a number of times when the "Do not Walk" sign was lit and there was traffic coming through that should legally have the right of way, but the pedestrians proceeded to cross the street in front of the traffic defying the "Do not Walk" sign. I couldn't believe the number of close calls I saw!

And so ended a wonderful day of sightseeing in Shanghai. Up next: Suzhou and Zhouzhuong tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Richard Halverstadt

Saturday, July 16, 2011

July 16, 2011: China Day 6 - Shanghai

No comments:

Post a Comment

Pages

Followers

Blog Archive

About Me

Popular Posts

counter