A Week on the Town

We toured Shanghai a lot this week. For those of you unfamiliar with the city, here's a picture of the famous Pudong area. It's home to major financial and commercial corporations. Also rich people.

The placement of the two globe-like buildings is questionable.

First we took a double-decker bus around downtown Puxi, or West Side, to see the concession areas. These are the places where various countries carved out chunks of Shanghai for themselves and did business there. Now they are just districts to visit. The sight of a bunch of waiguos in a bus was endlessly amusing to ourselves and to the Chinese.

The next day we took the subway to Pudong to visit the Oriental Pearl Tower (see above picture). It is the 3rd highest tower in the world. There was a wraparound deck of glass to walk on, which I've never seen before. Even after five steps, it made one a bit queasy. Below ground is a great history museum with interactive elements and beautiful miniatures.

Here are some pictures from the tours.


Everything is so tall!


How our Mercedes bus navigates this BS is beyond me. The traffic rules here consist of "I'm bigger," in which case, we are.


Don't go to massage parlors. Unless you want a "different" sort of massage. Prostitution is rampant here and there is almost no way to avoid it.


It's Styrofoam, don't worry. Okay, worry, because this guy is headed into heavy traffic.

We also went to a Chinese Acrobatics show. It was quite similar to one I went to in Eugene, but I think B-team was out on stage. There were quite a few dropped spinning plates and Chinese yo-yos. I also have a fundamental dislike for child contortionists, especially here. There was a great performance of silk climbing in the form of a romantic duet to "My Heart Will Go On." In the middle, the wide-screen TVs on the sides of the theater began showing clips from the movie. Hilarity ensued. The show ended with a "Ball of Death" performance of five motorcycles in a metal sphere. The last rider to leave the "Ball" unfurled a Chinese flag that fluttered behind her. Quite fitting.

Today I participated in the "Amazing Race," a program put on by CIEE. We ran around the city on public transportation finding things. At first it was fine but then it got unbearably hot and tiring. In addition, we moved from 2nd to 4th place after another team cheated and took a taxi. I was incensed! But nonetheless we ended up at Starbucks and I got a coffee fix. Then we left and I asked someone where the subway station was. In Chinese! And she understood me!

All in all a good week. Here is a picture of me and my friend Meghan with an odd statue made of Budweiser cans.



Scooter alarms set off: 2
Traffic altercations: 0
:)
ellen