Shanghai-3: To the City
Finishing Up
Before returning to the city we enjoyed a couple more sights. En route to one of the temples we saw, we stopped at a lake and took another boat ride. Unfortunately, it was a heavily overcast day which made picture taking difficult. On another excursion, we stopped at a tea plantation and got an interesting tour.
A successful businessman, proud that he can afford an outing on the lake.
This dragon boat is for rent, at over a thousand dollars an hour according to our guide.
Charlie, our tour guide in the Shanghai area, explaining how tea leaves are grown and harvested. Charlie related that he had done some genealogy research and had discovered that his family was related to English royalty. He laughingly commented that we could refer to him as Prince Charles!
A tea flower
The tea terraces. We were, of course, given the opportunity to buy tea and, of course, we did. Lots of green tea. It's quite good, and, according to the Chinese, very healthy for you.
Shanghai, the City
Finally, into the city of Shanghai. It's a huge city, and over half of it has been built since the mid '90s. Thus it is a modern city with new, state of the art infrastructure. Even the old city is undergoing tremendous modernization. It is sobering to compare a huge, glistening new city like Shanghai to our decaying cities with their crumbling infrastructure.
A blend of modern and traditional architecture along the water front at night.
The world's tallest building - the one with the hole in it. In the background is the word's third tallest building.
A stunning modern bridge across the river, connecting the old city with the new.
Construction everywhere. Shanghai must have more construction cranes than the next ten cities in the world combined.
Apartments alongside the freeway. Even though they can well afford them, the Chinese do not use clothes dryers. They prefer to dry their clothes in the sunshine. Therefore, apartments, even in the high rise buildings, have poles sticking out from the balconies so they can dry their clothes. If you drop something, it's a long way to go get it!
A not-so-modern entanglement of wires.
The shopping area in the old part of the city. If one knows where to go, one can find shops that specialize in brand name knock offs. They're illegal, so be cautious.
Beautiful architecture in the old city market area.
More spectacular architecture surrounding a public square, full of scurrying shoppers.
And through an almost unnoticed gate on the other side of the wall is this serene little garden.