A Little Slice of Heaven and Shanghai
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2006
1
35
70
Trip End
Dec 18, 2006
Shanghai,
China
Thursday, October 19, 2006
We spent the 18th in sessions at the hotel and then enjoyed a tour of a Buddhist nunnery and gardens in the afternoon. The morning session, Green Design and Planning, was by Kenneth Yeang who shared multiple projects with green components with the group. The next session I attended was: Believe It or Not: Feng Shui in Modern Architecture, by Dominique Levack and Michael Chiang. There was a thorough discussion of the principles of Feng Shui and its application in the built and natural environment
01-Dinner on the Bund!
.Chris attended: Rail Estate: Place Making in Hong Kong by Raymond Chien, Peter Cookson-Smith, and Thomas Ho.
The afternoon tour Chris, Amey and I attended, Get Thee to a Nunnery: Religion and Feng Shui in Architecture and Interiors was comprised of a walking tour, film about the nunnery, and drinks and dim sum at the conclusion.
The final dinner included a hilarious speaker who shed some light on the different cultural nuances in China that differ from the West. Awards were given out for some notable architectural projects and we had a multiple course Chinese banquet! We had to keep track of the courses so we could pace ourselves!
This morning started early so that I could make my 8am flight to Shanghai. The airport was modern, but no air conditioner? I thought to myself, I'm back in China now...not Hong Kong anymore. The cab ride was a little bit over an hour. The airport is a bit out of town so it took a while before we saw the massive outline of the buildings of the city. The sky was hazy and the weather humid and warm
02-Fancy Dinner Napkin!
. Right outside the city, next to the huge skyscrapers were people on bicycles, people selling things on the side of the road, more disarray. Lots of high rises, many of them residential with air conditioners dotting the facade...I guess central a/c wasn't in the original plans.I dealt with the hotel and all its quirkiness...hard to evaluate a hotel from the internet. This one definately has a local flavor. If the Four Seasons was a Ferarri, then the Pacific is a Hyundai...with stained upholstery! Major adjustment.....but I've been doing many of those on my trip.
We attended the evening reception at the New Heights on the Bund (the river running through Shanghai) and then we all had dinner with another conference attendee, Erik, at Laris Restaurant. The night skyline is more spectacular than the daytime. The lasers and dark sky allow the smog to recede into the background. So many laser shows on the buildings, huge advertising signs and even multiple boats with large scale electronic advertising signage motoring along the water.
I have to be honest, after Tibet, I have such mixed feelings about China right now. I am left with such an impression of the place, the numbers of people, the size and scale of the buildings, the resulting air pollution.... When they do it here, they really do it big! I know there is more to see and learn which will hopefully widen my perspective!
