Shanghai-29 N0vember 2008

Colonial architecture
Old China town section of Shanghai


Telecommunication Tower-Shanghai

YC Chong
View from Hyatt Hotel

Shanghai City


This morning I met YC Chang who has a daughter at Mount Maunganui College. YC very generously offered to show me around Shanghai, and he had hired a car and driver for the day to take us around.

We went into the city and went to the top of the Hyatt Hotel, about 55 floors where we could look across at the highest building in Shanghai and to get a great panorama of the city. YC then took me down to the bund, the waterfront where we could look across at the new part of the city on the east side of the river, and tp walk alongside many of the old original colonial era buildings that were taken over by the communist government. We then went into the old China part of town,very traditional Chinese architecture, and had lunch in a restaurant there. lovely old part of town with lakes and rivers full of fish.

later I asked YC to drop me in a shopping area, with the thought of doing a bit of present buying. However, after having been hassled so often to buy watches, bags and anything else that one might want, plus many propositions from young women, I decided I had had enough of crowds and caught a taxi back to the hotel

It is difficult to even describe the shear volume of people in this city-there is around 60 million in the province, and 19 million in the city. The density of huge high rise apartments, motorways etc is mind boggeling. It is hard to imagine how so many people can live in any kind of balanced lifestyle here-it definitely fees like a place where people work to live only. It is not a place I would willingly visit-I cannot see the point of subjecting ones self to being in a place with so many people-it is interesting, but not pleasant.