Tuesday, May 04, 2004
We got back home around 9 last night after Shanghai...we had a great time there. China is kind of what you'd expect Japan to be like, very Asian. It makes you realise how easy and convenient Japan is!
It was pretty warm in Shanghai, and rainy the first couple of days, but got better. We did a lot of tea drinking and eating Chinese food (of course!), as well as sightseeing - mostly just walking around, but we visited Shanghai Museum, Yu Gardens (and teahouse), the Bund which is a street of 20s colonial buildings and various other places. Shanghai is strange because it has a lot of Art Deco buildings as well as some Chinese ones.
There are really two sides to life there too, lots of bourgeouis hotels, designer shops and restaurants and cafes which have only recently opened up, almost alongside family run businesses selling old machine parts, fabric, food and anything else imaginable. Some people seem to live their lives in the shops too. There were a few child beggars with their parents/grandparents. If the adults saw us or other Westerners coming, they'd tell their children and send them running to us (a few children seemed to refuse!) with a paper cup saying "Hello, hello, xiaxia (thankyou), hello...". We had to literally run off a couple of times as they just kept following us for ages.
When we got back to our local airport, it was rainy, windy and freezing cold! It still doesn't seem to be spring yet. Ridiculous!
It was pretty warm in Shanghai, and rainy the first couple of days, but got better. We did a lot of tea drinking and eating Chinese food (of course!), as well as sightseeing - mostly just walking around, but we visited Shanghai Museum, Yu Gardens (and teahouse), the Bund which is a street of 20s colonial buildings and various other places. Shanghai is strange because it has a lot of Art Deco buildings as well as some Chinese ones.
There are really two sides to life there too, lots of bourgeouis hotels, designer shops and restaurants and cafes which have only recently opened up, almost alongside family run businesses selling old machine parts, fabric, food and anything else imaginable. Some people seem to live their lives in the shops too. There were a few child beggars with their parents/grandparents. If the adults saw us or other Westerners coming, they'd tell their children and send them running to us (a few children seemed to refuse!) with a paper cup saying "Hello, hello, xiaxia (thankyou), hello...". We had to literally run off a couple of times as they just kept following us for ages.
When we got back to our local airport, it was rainy, windy and freezing cold! It still doesn't seem to be spring yet. Ridiculous!
# posted by Phil T : 12:41 am
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