Thursday October 30, 2008

I apologize for not having Tuesday and Wednesday’s blogs completed yet – I thought that I would start fresh with today’s blog and then catch up on the other days when there is a little more time!

So far today, things have gone extremely smoothly – there is something good to be said for traveling with a tour group. Wake up call was at 6:30 so that we could have our check in luggage packed up and outside our room at seven o’clock. No need to worry about getting your luggage to the bus, to the airport, or even to the check in desk!

After that, I had enough time to have a leisurely breakfast and play a little scrabble on Facebook! We all congregated in the lobby at 8:30 (we were even somewhat early I think), and hopped on the bus.

Lixin filled us in a little bit on Shanghai – did you know that 70 % of the skyscrapers in Shanghai have been built since 1990? She says that Beijing is like a mature woman – it takes some time to fall in love with her, while Shanghai is a young woman – love at first sight!

The flight was completely uneventful – which was nice for once on this trip (lol!). People were seated alphabetically, so it gave time for conversations with new people, and sometimes, time for a nap. The food on airplanes in China is much better than at home (I think I have already said that once) – they even offer you seconds if they have extra food available.

Landing in Shanghai we found out it was a little wet and drizzly. This changed our plans for the afternoon a little bit. Originally, we were set to spend a bit of time at the Bund, which is an important tourist attraction in Shanghai. It stretches one mile along the bank of the Huangpu River. But without nice weather, we wouldn’t be able to truly appreciate it’s beauty. So instead, about 2/3 of the people went for a 50 minute reflexology foot massage, and the rest of us checked into our hotel.

We have a new cultural guide for this portion of our trip – we left Mr. Chi behind in Beijing. Our new guide, Steven, gave us a brief overview of Shanghai, and then Jei gave us more information after we dropped the rest of the group off to have their feet played with (just kidding!).

Here is what I have learned so far about Shanghai:

· 10 percent of all construction cranes are working here in Shanghai
· There are 18.5 million people living in Shanghai
· There is a natural divide in Shanghai – the Huangpu River
· Shanghai became a county 700 years ago and was a fishing village and had many rice patty farms
· In the good old days of the 19th century, getting “Shanghai’d” wasn’t such a great thing, as it essentially amounted to being kidnapped and forced to work on a ship sailing to–in most cases–Shanghai. Certain bars in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, in fact became notorious centers for the practice.
· Shanghai will be hosting the World Expo in 2010 – please see the link to the right of this entry for more information. It looks pretty cool!

Tonight we are off for dinner and then to see an acrobatics show - I will write more after that and let everyone know when pictures are uploaded (it's halfway done now - 215 pictures for you all to see)!