China Part 5: Shanghai
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
25
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
Shanghai,
Shanghai,
China
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Welcome to our China Trip part 5: Shanghai.
We were met at the airport by Mac our tour guide. He was nice. Quiet. During the hour long car journey back to the hotel, Mac questioned us incessantly about England. Then he fell asleep!
Our Hotel was Downtown. Yes, Dusty Springfield came out in me very vocally! In our Hotel we discovered a lovely steamy neon lit sauna for massages. I got very excited at this...."only for men" I was told....! This became a common occurrence within Hotels in China. Men are very sexually catered for! In fact David got propositioned twice!!! Once, a woman asked him for a massage, "no thanks" said David. Then she winked and repeated "a special massage for gentlemen??" Again, David declined the offer. Then another time, a bloke came up and asked, "massage, Sir?" "No thanks" said David and walked off. But the man followed him, "Sir! Sir! Massage for...gentlemen?" "Really, no thank you" and David walked on. This time the man followed him some more and just to make it quite clear what he was talking about the man rammed a finger through his fist repeatedly and said "No, Sir! Special massage?" David hurried off not quite sure whether the special massage would indeed be with this small china-man in beige slacks.......
Mac took us to Jade Buddha Temple. This was fascinating. A hectic cobbled-street market square, a pagoda temple and big incense burning furnaces in front with a throng of locals praying and whispering for wishes to be granted.
Handwritten Temple wishes
Incense smoke curled up towards the sky like wispy ghosts. The temple was magnificent with buddhas looming above and the piece de resistance Buddha carved out of a single piece of jewel-encrusted jade. A lot of the buddhas were situated within the small Temple shops so you could buy cheap tat and then pray to Buddha to forgive you...!! Helairious! From all the rooves hung rows of red feng shui lanterns and a flurry of red ribbons adorned with handwritten wishes were tied around tree trunks and stone lions for good luck! Very poetic scene. Mac had a very unique tour guide attitude. "Do what you like" basically while "I will give you titbits of information". It was liberating but not directional. Every so often we would ask, "where do we go now, Mac?" Very different from the previous dictatorial guides! We had some traditional tea made for us, all for specific medicinal purposes - detoxification; energy; arthritis etc. The teas were delicious and the tea-making ritual was fantastic. When we finished, we found Mac downstairs tucked onto a bench engrossed in his biography about this Chinese self-made millionaire who works in the computer games industry. Henceforth David and Mac were friends for life!!
We went to the Shanghai Museum. It is situated in People's Park which is a vast landscaped area where you can walk amidst beautiful trees and ponds or just sit on a bench and gaze up at the mirrored skyscrapers glinting in the blinding sun. This park used to be the old racecourse of Shanghai in the early 20th Century boasting a cricket pitch, a swimming pool and the clubhouse.
Shop 'n' pray..genius!
The old grandstand is now the Shanghai Museum. The museum displays over 120,000 pieces from furniture, jade and bronze to coins, calligraphy and sculpture (bit like The British Museum). It was fascinating. The furniture section was stunning - I've always loved Chinese furniture it is just so exquisite and elegant. (David: I, however, did get all excited about the bronze stuff. There were all sorts of wine vessels over 5000 years old. And even a few swords, still sharp and more or less as pristine as the day they were made - again, 5000 years ago. Bronze, I learnt, doesn't deteriorate as rapidly as iron.)Mac took us to a Mongolian Barbecue for lunch which was great fun. If you have never been before it is basically a choose your food from a selection of uncooked meats and vegetables; take it to the chef's window and he will then toss it into a humungous sized sizzling hotplate, shuffle it about with giant chopsticks, knocking about 10% of it onto the floor. All the while doing a bit of a dance routine around the hotplate and then he'll swipe it onto a plate minutes later involving a bit of a Michael Jackson Moonwalk dance! So funny!
We went to the old city of Shanghai which was great. We saw old ramshackle huts in small alleyways cowering beneath the shooting metropolis of mirror and glass skyscraper modernity. Shanghai used to be a minor river port until 1842 when more Europeans integrated with it resulting in Shanghai becoming renowned for it's glamour and decadence between the two world wars.
Shanghai
This slowly diminished over time sadly. The main focus of old Shanghai were the Yu gardens and Bazaar. A spacious landscaped garden comprised of a labyrinth of rocks and boulders, trickling streams, waterfalls and bamboo trees shading Koi fish ponds. Absolutely serenely stunning. Outside, the bazaars heaved with locals and tourists and sellers shouting. We bought a Chinese Bamboo Saxophone from a man who grew the bamboo and made the instrument. He was great fun! And the sound of it is stunning. Resembling a recorder but the sound is a deep sexy saxophone. We vowed to learn to play it. 2 weeks later, we've looked at it twice........! That night, Mac took us on a boat trip on the Huangpu River. A mere 68 miles long! But we only covered about 1 mile of this just to see the Las Vegas lights of Shanghai!! We sailed mainly past The Bund which is an area parallel to the river, housing an abundance of old colonial buildings, hotels, skyscrapers and restaurants. The skyscrapers were neck-braking high and all around neon lights flashed and shimmered into the Quink black river with the wind blowing your hair about. Fantastic.
The next day David and I were left to our own devices. I had read about this crazy "Tourist Tunnel" taking you under the river. Tacky, kitsch and like a fairground Ghost Train Ride was Lonely Planet's description. Situated beneath the Huangpu River, it was the most surreal experience ever! Only about 15 of us could fit into this small electric train that slowly took you through this 650 metre tunnel passing inflatable day-glo waving figures, neon laser lights flashing with 80's computer bleep-bleep-zip-zip noises and a Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells voice saying "Meteor Shower!" or "Centre of the Earth" every so often! Mental Oriental! I absolutely loved it!!!!!!!!!!!
We went up one of the highest skyscrapers in Shanghai.
Pearl Tower at night
Jinmao Tower - 421 metres! A silvery glinting pagoda shaped building. 42 floors of offices, between 53rd and 87th floor is the Grand Hyatt Hotel and we went up to the 88th floor which is where the viewing gallery is. Absolutely incredible. But the weather was very hazy so visibility wasn't great. We then went into the Grand Hyatt Hotel for a look around. Glamour and sophistication ooooozed out of it's sumptuous cream carpets and colonial lamps! From the elegant piano bar you could see up the 33-storey atrium as you craned your neck and squinted at the tiny spotlights edging the balconies above. Magnificent. Next to the Jinmao Tower is the new Shanghai World Financial Centre which looks just like a massive mirrored bottle opener-see photos. It's a mere 492 metres!! Due to open mid-2008 but there were still workmen hanging from the windows when we over the road in the Jinmao Tower. The 'bottle opener' will consist of a hotel, conference rooms, viewing gallery, shopping malls and offices. Can't wait!!
We went for dinner at the Oriental Pearl TV Tower restaurant. This was one of the first modern towers in Shanghai. Built in 1994 it's a mere 157 metres high and comprises of a Museum, viewing platforms and rotating restaurants. The rotating restaurant was all we went for. It looks futuristic, like something out of Dr Who but with neon disco lights all over it! The place was rammed!! We weren't expecting excellent food but we wanted to say "we'd done the Pearl TV Tower!!" Actually the food was great!! A buffet style all-you-can-eat while watching neon-shanghai rotate past you at a speed of about 1mph.
Tourist Surreal Kitsch Tunnel!
We went to get our first buffet helping and on our return I looked very confused and said to David, "why have they moved our flaming table?!" David gave me 'a look' and said "darling..we are in a rotating restaurant!!?" oh yes, that would make sense then...! One day, Mac took us to the Children's Palace. This looks like an old Victorian mansion. It was built by a British businessman in the 1930's as his home. Now it is like an after school place for gifted children. The building is grand and gothic with original ceramic floor tiles and sweeping mahogany staircases. The gardens are expansive with bamboo trees and plush lawns. So pretty and peaceful. We got taken around some of the classes going on. The first one was a Calligraphy class. About 15 children between 4 and 8 years old sat at desks with one of their parents, practising the Chinese characters with a brush and black paint. So fantastic to observe. A couple of them were engrossed in David and I standing there and got ticked off by their parents for not watching the teacher!! Ooops. The next class we went to was an art class with the same age group. They had been instructed to draw a picture of a buck-toothed rabbit in the sun!? their pictures were hilarious and beautiful. We said "nee-how" to them all (hello) and we were greeted like pop stars!!! The final class we went to was the best. A dance class. About 20 little girls in pink tutus twirled around the room, giggling at the excitement of seeing us. Then their teacher told them to do a little dance for us and they all stood in rows and did this fantastic dance, it was absolutely magnificent and I applauded loudly and did lots of woo wooo! Much to their amusement! David took lots of photos of them because they looked so adorable.
Pearl Tower by day
Can you imagine David taking photos of little girls in England?! He'd be banged up in prison with his face plastered all over the tabloids with the headline "Sicko!"!!One of the most wonderful things we went to was a Chinese Acrobatic show. Oh my god!! It was incredible. Different acts of varying degrees of heart-stopping, palm-dripping feats of acrobats. There were girls standing on a tower of leaning chairs, all of them doing handstands on each level; a man and woman re-enacting a love scene involving swinging above the stage with the aid of some ribbons tied copiously around their limbs; men dressed as sperm and gymnastically somersaulting through various towers of hoops; it was so amazing. There was an elderly Australian couple sitting behind us and the man was so funny, every so often when some spangly-clad China man was balancing sky-high on a piece of dental floss the Ozzie would keep muttering in amazement "oh for god's sakes!" in a gruff Dame Edna Everage voice! The one thing we had to get used to though was the Chinese talking throughout the whole performance!! They don't seem to watch in silence but see the start of a performance as the cue to talk loudly with the person next to you. It wasn't too distracting as most of the time the auditorium was filled with gasps and rapturous applause but nevertheless....SHUT IT!!!!
Shanghai was great. We loved it but it took me by surprise. I idiotically expected the old shanghai - locals in triangle hats, cycling around a labyrinth of cobbled alley ways with a port of trading, shouting, colour and history. A very romantic notion. Sadly, it was the opposite: a rising metropolis of mirrored glass, yellow taxis, tons of fashion shops and more sky walkways to get you over the spaghetti junction of congested roads.
The next day we left for our next destination: Suzhou.
