Last Day in Shanghai
Written on 4:33 AM by John
Today is our last day in Shanghai. We have been to the famous Bund, Old International Concession, Old Chinese City, and Former French Concession. The Bund provides an often hazy view of the east side of Shanghai divided by the Huangpu River. It’s a great place to snap pictures of the sky line and get your bounds as you set course for exploration. Just west of the Bund is the Old International Concession. This is basically all of the highend Georgtown or New York shops strung along about 8 blocks with hawlkers in the middle asking you to buy a watch, T-shirt, etc. Just south of the Old International Concession lies the Old Chinese City. This is really what you might invision a big city Chinese neighborhood to be—tons of knock offs, antiques, art, food stalls, and packs and packs of people. This was the first time we felt like this city was somewhere other than any other city, really. West of all this you have the Former French Concession. The Former French Concession seems to be an expats haven full of international cuisine and boutique shops, with less crowd and polution than many other parts of the city we had been to.
Reading the magazines and travel guides, the majority of the must see/do in Shanghai centers around food and nightlife. Being our first stop in China, we are trying to take it slow on the food adventure. Don’t worry, I will shock the world later with some Andrew Zimmerman like bizarre food stories, but for now we are taking it slow. As for the night life, well, between the jet lag and rock hard matresses, we haven’t experienced any nights outside of the hostel. A shame, I know, but we will revisit this guzty “little” city at the end of travels with plenty of steam and last night drama to tap into whatever nightlife may be had. For now, however, we are content to venture on into the real China to explore the people, landscapes and cuisine that make each province so special.
Chinese character note 1:
For some reason, we have notice a lot of spitting. Not your casual rare instance of ejectile need, but common place and quite frequent hacking up a lung spitting. Now, we may all have various views and levels of dislike to this, in my opinion, disgusting act, but, when one is personally effected....I mean, when one actual receives a direct blow....well we have all seen Seinfields rendition of the FDR shooting right? Worst of all, especially for those who know her, Meredith was tagged three times in one day! Three times! It was a battle field out there. We actually had to develop a flanking strategy to alert each other of any throat clearing. This worked for a while, but when a bus pulled up and had some shots comimg from the window, Meredith couldn’t find a path of escape. This Shanghai is one dangerous place. We will update you if other parts of China require the same deftness.
