Google is a bit of a hit and miss affair,
with the internet having some sort of filter placed on it. It usually works ok, but every so often it
seems to throw a hissy fit and no matter what I do, I can’t get it to
work. Today I was asking google to
convert Japanese Yen to New Zealand dollars, which is obviously outside
acceptable behaviour, so I just got “The webpage is not available message. To get around this problem I have taken to
using Ask Jeeves, which seems to suffer less from this sort of thing.
Tracy and Sam collected us at 9am, in Sam’s
big people mover. Shanghai traffic seems
more structured than Xian’s, which was more structured than Beijing’s, however
as a pedestrian the street lights still mean nothing and a green man on a
pedestrian crossing means that you look each way before you step off the
pavement. Cars in New Zealand are
supposed to leave 4 metres between themselves and pedestrians, but here 4
inches is about enough for any car, bike or scooter to squeeze through on.
First stop was the temple of the Jade
Buddha. Actually, there were lots of
Buddha’s, all in different poses, with different looks on their faces. It is a working temple, so there were also
people there to worship, so we enjoyed the grounds and the buildings of the
temple that were particularly beautiful.
After that we went down to the Bund for a walk around on the
waterfront. Although it was a Monday,
there were half a dozen bride and grooms running round doing their pre-wedding
photo shoot. Tracy explained about the
British, French and Japanese concessions, which were specifically designated
parts of the city that were set aside for those countries as a result of
winning the opium wars in the 19th century. The part of the Bund we are on is in the
British Concession and it is evident in the architecture of the buildings.
On the other side of the river, is new
Shanghai, the part that 30 years ago was farm land, and now has over 3,000 high
rises, and 4 bridges and 8 tunnels joining it to the old part of Shanghai. There are a number of interesting buildings
on the other side of the river – the TV tower, which is shaped a bit like
Thunderbird 3, with 4 support legs at the base, holding up a large ball, which
then has a needle on top of it, with two smaller balls further up the needle,
and finally the long point at the peak heading skyward. There is also a building with a big square
hole at the top, which is called, and looks very much like a bottle opener. Finally, there is the new Shanghai Towers
which is still under construction, will be over 600m tall when it is finished
and towers over everything else on the skyline.
Thinking of the man having to work in the crane over the top of the
building is enough to make my stomach turn.
At night the skyline is particularly amazing with many of the buildings
doing their own light show to light up the sky and provide a free show for all
the people promenading on The Bund on the other side of the river
Lunch today was at a traditional Chinese
dumpling restaurant, and it was nice to have Tracy there to tell us what to
do. Not that it’s hard, it’s just that
without local advise I would have just used chop sticks, but Tracy said to use
the spoon underneath it while holding it with the chopsticks. You then bite one of the sides, so that the
boiling hot juices escape into the spoon rather than burning your mouth – now
that is useful local knowledge. The
lunch menu was in the middle of the area known as the Yuyuan Gardens, which we
then spent a couple of hours walking around.
The gardens were created over 450 years ago when a public official from
Beijing decided to retire in Shanghai, and created the gardens on the 8 acres
of land that he bought there. I said to
Tracy that I would be pretty horrified if any of New Zealand’s public officials
were buying up 8 acres of land in the middle of a big city when they
retired. She said that corruption in
China was a big problem, and had been for centuries, but the current president
is making a bold stand against it, and many public officials are being sent to
prison for it. Tracy also told us about
the lot of women in China centuries ago, who had their feet bound as children,
and their feet were so small that they were no longer able to walk. The wife of this official would never have
left the gardens, nor would she have had any friends because any women that
would be her friend would also have their feet bound, and be locked away in
their husband’s houses. It sounded like
a pretty horrible society, if that isn’t being too judgemental.
In the evening, we went to the ERA
acrobatic show, which was absolutely brilliant with a whole range of very
flexible and talented performers doing a great range of incredible tricks and
stunts. The grand finale was 8
motorbikes circling round the sphere of death, but the whole show was
incredibly clever and we were amazed at the talent and bravery of the many
performers. The show was an hour and a
half long, and Anne and I couldn’t stop talking about the acts when we were
being driven back to the Hotel by Sam.
At 9:30 the traffic was a lot lighter than when we had gone to the show,
and Sam seemed to be in a hurry to get home, so it was a pretty exciting trip,
with several what I would call near misses, but Sam seemed to take it all in
his stride.
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