Walked along the Bund with the guide giving us good information about the history of this part of the city. This was formerly Shanghai's "Wall Street". Shanghai is a very much younger city than other areas of China, with no buildings dating back to earlier dynasties. Bus took us to the "Old Chinese Quarter" and visited the very relaxing Yu Garden which is a peaceful oasis in this bustling city.
Shanghai is almost a "sister-city" geographically (but not climatically) to Melbourne, having a very similar latitude and longitude but in the northern hemisphere.
Then the Shanghai Museum - renowned world-wide and recommended to us by many as a place not to miss. There are four floors of exhibits, each with an impressive collection of ancient bronze works, stone statues, ceramics, calligraphy, paintings, coins, Qing and Ming furniture, jade, ethnic minority costumes and masks (the latter were fascinating and contained the most beautiful hand-done threadwork). There was not time to do the museum justice, so a return visit would be worthwhile. Toilets are 5-star plus!! We actually went to Pizza Hut for lunch, because we could not find a suitable Chinese restaurant nearby. What a shock after wonderful Chinese cuisine!
Warning from our excellent guide - taxis are fine and cheap, but under no circumstances should one take a red taxi. Avoid at all costs - not registered, no meters or meters not turned on, devious route-taking, and arguments about the fare at the destination if you make it there.
The city is on countdown to the 2010 World Expo, with everyone excited at the prospect of showing off their headline city to other countries. A whole new complex is to be constructed for the Expo, on land which is vacant now. The Urban Planning Exhibition Hall was a similar display to the one we saw in Beijing - fascinating to see the scale-model existing buildings, buildings under construction, and those still in the planning stage. Well worth a visit to this centre, which also contained engineer's drawings of some of the proposed constructions for the 2010 Expo.
Established today that if the first-born child is actually twins, then the couple are not penalised under the one-child policy!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment