Why Shanghai? Week One.

It's been months since my three and a half week stay in Shanghai, China. Finally getting around to penning a narrative of the experience. Not with a pen, clearly.

My dad went to Shanghai for two months for work, so I decided to get a plane ticket and go stay with him for a few weeks. I was looking into the Chinese green building market, to see what attitudes and norms were normally practiced.

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Tuesday April 19

The views from Dad's hotel room!

Shanghai is huge, partly because it makes one of what could be two cities. Divided by the Huangpu River and bounded in the East by the Pacific, Shanghai has its east side "Pudong" and west side "Puxi."

You can see by the first picture that I was in the Pudong because peeking out at the top are the blue night lights of the World Financial Trade Center, the tallest building in China and 3rd in the world (for now). More on that later.

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Wednesday April 20

Pudong has many interesting sites. The first I visited were:

This random river channel.

The energy technology installment at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.

And some other regular sci tech installments...

A view across the lake at the large park in central Pudong, Century Park. To the left is the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, and everything to the right of that is just apartment developments and office developments, as far as I can tell.

I knew it was missing something

It's almost like I'm wearing the Shanghai World Financial Center as a hat.

One of the lovely paths in Century Park.

A statue head of Olmec, which is not a thread in the narrative of Chinese history but rather was a gift from some city in Mexico...? I thought it was a peculiar sight in a park in Shanghai, but then again I was constantly being surprised.

Public art in the Financial district.

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Thursday April 21

Another day I took the Metro over to the Puxi. I was in search of the fabric markets, and along the way I found the sights and sounds of "Old Shanghai" where the buildings are decayed brick, and the streets are full of produce vendors.

The juxtaposition is amazing...

A defunct theatre?

Looks like construction stopped?

The low brick buildings often are empty, leading to overgrown courtyards like this one.

Bikes AND Chickens (and a fire truck) in Old Shanghai!

Demolition... soon to become a high rise I bet.

So many bikes... no where near college town! It's how everyone gets around, really.

One of about a gazillion produce vendors on the small narrow streets.

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Friday April 22

Another day I tried to navigate my way to the Jade Buddha Temple in the Puxi. I found some interesting public park art along the way.

Cool reflection of the art (and a walker) on an adjacent granite bench.

Such a shiny park art installment!

Do you see it?

There are cranes EVERYWHERE in Shanghai. Development is happening ALWAYS.

I love bamboo!

So I made it (finally) to the Jade Buddha Temple.

No divining by the Eight Diagrams? Shoot.

While they did allow photography, they didn't allow flash, so the gorgeous color of the statues are lost in the lighting wash.

Yes, the lotus flowers are styrofoam.

 

 I love the pedestal creature!

For whenever 100+ people need to pray simultaneously, I suppose.

Looks like a mighty smiting face to me.

Don't know what this says...

For good luck (isn't everything!?)

Then, I made it over to the Jing'an Temple.

Rather funny how the new office, retail, and residential developments rose up so closely around the temple. Retail stores are built into the street level around the temple.

One of my personal favorite photos.

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Saturday April 23

The story of the dragon statue seen all over China. The dragon is a money eating dragon (silver, gold, etc) and, (likely for unexplained ulterior reasons) the dragon had its ass whomped so hard that its ass closed up. Now the dragon can only eat money and never shit it out. So, the dragon is a symbol of luck in prosperity, and any bank (government too?) building will have two statues of this dragon (clearly its name eludes me) situated outside the door.

But really, these photos are from our trip to Nanjing. We decided not to go to their genocide museum, as it would be too depressing, despite being historically interesting.

So after climbing all the way up the pagoda I took some scenic pics.

Fancy drinks on dry ice at the restaurant in Nanjing.

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Sunday April 24

We visited another portion of the French Quarter. This is a shopping center amidst 5-6 story buildings, where shoppers and diners crowd the ground floor labyrinth and who knows what goes on in the lofts above.

Everyone else was taking their picture in front of this figurine so I did too.

Ballroom dancing in Fuxing Park. After snapping some shots of the nice folks' waltz I did some ballroom steps with my dad to a quick tune. A step back in time?

Marx and Engels in Fuxing Park. Kudos to my Dad for crouching down to get a good aspect here! Kudos to Nicholas Koening for the anti-capitalist tee to sport abroad. I didn't plan on wearing it for this shot, cross my heart.

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