China Day 7

Shanghai today and while it is cold it is sunny and apparently smog-free.  That does not last too long but it is still really nice.  Our hotel is good but a few people got bad rooms so I need to make that right.

We get started touring at 8:30 am and headed toward the Bund, which is on the old side of Shanghai on the river (sorry, I can't remember which one but it is part of the Yellow River group).  Shanghai was built on a river Delta and the Bund used to be a beach area.  The famous Peace Hotel is located front and central but there is no longer a beach.  The old part of Shanghai faces the new part across the river, which is called Pudong.  When I was here 30 years ago, there was nothing across the river.  Now there are tall office buildings lit up like Christmas trees.  There are over 3000 buildings that are 25 stories or more in Shanghai.  It is amazing.  And that does not count the thousands more that are "only "24 stories or less.  The Pudong area is also home to dozens of high-rise villages where the government moves the people that they displace when they raze old run-down, inefficient old-fashioned villages.  The government owns all of the land and buildings.  People can now get mortgages and buy apartments and offices but they are actually only leasing them for no more than 70 years.  During that time, they can sell them but the original lease still only runs 70 years.  I know this sounds terrible but all of the people seem very happy and taken care of.  You can imagine how this pisses off the good Americans traveling with me.

Then we headed to a silk factory where we learned all about silkworms and how they are raised and how silk is made into really nifty comforters.  By the time we left, there were a lot fewer blankets at the silk factory!  The bus looked like a white sale gone wild. We had a lot of fun.

Then on to Shanghai Slim's in the Oldest part of Shanghai for lunch.  It was really modern, however, and the manager was English.  We all wanted wine and he managed to get each of us a glass for only $7.00!  Our guide said she thinks we are all really lucky, happy people because no one in China would ever even think of ordering wine with lunch for NO reason!

We are then on to the Sunqiao Modern Agricultural Zone where we see a lot of hydroponic gardens and not much else.  It was a boring 3 miles walk but a lot of the farmers really enjoyed it.  We then went to a grocery store (Nancy likes to visit them to see how differently other countries shop) which turned out to be much nicer than any of our stores.  Everything was individually wrapped (eggs, fruits etc).  The store is in the basement of the most elegant mall I have ever seen.  Four stories of fabulous luxury.  This may be a communist country but it is definitely filled with capitalistic values.

After a very long day, we still had to take an hour boat trip up and down the river to see the lights of all of the skyscrapers on both banks.  It is freezing but very dramatically beautiful.  A cold and scenic ending to a very long day.