Shanghai impressions

Pictures from our visit in Shanghai; 23. May - 5. June 2007 (Click on a picture for a larger view)
	Typical streetview: trolley bus cables, lots of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists disregarding the traffic light, cars trying to push through, high buildings where people live.
	The Western fast food companies are present too. The only thing we could read are the company names, street signs, and number occuring in text (like dates). For the rest everything is in Chinese, of course. Larger restaurants have the names of the dishes translated in their menus.
	Lots of taxis and taxi companies. Notice the fences on either side. These are construction sites that you see everywhere: the old parts of town are being replaced with 20-40 story towers for living space, hotels or offices. At many sites construction goes on 24/7.
	The bazar is an area of several blocks where the old building styles were restored. It now contains tourist shops.
	The performer with this 'theater' told famous old Chinese stories. People look through the holes in the front. He changes the cardboard displays, tells the story, makes the sounds that accompany the story. You pay him afterwards what you think his performance was worth.
	The 9-bends bridge in the bazar.
	Our host had us taste this bean curd snack. Blocks of bean curd are soaked in fish sauce, then dried. If you order a snack, they deep fry it and add soy sauce. It smells horrible, but tastes better.

	The tourists feed the koy.
	One dumpling shop is very famous, people queue in long lines to eat there. Through the windows you can look at the 20 people making the dumplings. These are steamed in the bamboo boxes you see in the front.
	Outside the bazar; many people want to sell you watches.
	One of the entrances to the bazar.
	The city center streets at night. Shops stay open till around eight.
	Note the woman sweeping the street. You see people cleaning up everywhere. Even posters illegally glued to the bus stand are scraped off the following morning.
	The Holiday Inn where we stayed was divided into two wings separated by this pedestrian area leading to one of Shanghai's train stations.
	There was a manifestation going on there for several days. Amateur sing and dance groups would gather in the morning and perform for the passersby. The only thing we found out that it was for child wellfare. Click here to watch a movie (wmv, 3 MB).
	Movie left (wmv, 5 MB). Movie right (wmv, 7 MB).
	Evening views from the office of our business partner, to the restaurant across the street. This was a restaurant where no tourists came usually, we had lunch there a couple of times. Luckily Shannon could read the menu.

	Typical lunch and dinner. You order several dishes that you then all pick from with your chopsticks. You drink tea with it. This was in a vegetarian restaurant where they did their best to make it look and taste like fish and meat. There are 3 vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai (16 million inhabitants).
	Chinese food tastes great. There are a lot of flavours we don't know, of course. One large difference: lots of foods have a soft structure (like e.g. jelly, squid, overcooked spaghetti), which 'tastes' strange.
	The television tower is one of Shanghais attractions. You can go up to 290 meters and look over the city - not very far, beacuse with the smog the view is never moren than 2-3 kilometers.

	The area where the television tower is is called The Bund. Across the river are the old colonial buildings from the time the English, French etc were here (end 19th, beginning 20t century).

	Views from the television towers.
	... construction going on everywhere. You can't see it on this picture, but from this height we could see the welding lights in the construction pits 290 meters below!
	This is typical Shanghai weather. The temperature during our stay was 20-30 degrees Centigrade, and it was always humid.
	What is that big advertisement doing there on that boat in the middle of the river? Television screens with advertisements are everywhere on the streets, even 20 meters high on the side of buildings, or in elevators.
	An old river branch leading into the city. A couple of years ago the water that came out of here was black. The city managed to clean it up, mainly by moving industrial activities out of the city center.

	When my colleague was here previously (October 2006), there were less stories ;-)
	At the bottom level of the television tower there is large exhibition on life in Shanghai since the city was started in the 13th century, concentrating on the 19th and 20th century. If you do not know much about Shanghai, visiting the exhibition gives you a good background of how the city has develop until approx. WW II
	A shrine carried around at weddings (made by a very rich business man).
	The exhibition has lots of Madame Tussaud-like displays of professions. This is a typical herbal medicine shop from around 1900