May 6, Thursday, Shanghai Arrival

May 6, Thursday, Shanghai Arrival

New airport, new city, new local guide (though, of course, Chen is still with us and doing a great job of keeping things running smoothly). We quickly collect our bags and load onto the bus for the half-hour drive into the city. It seems that more and more airports are being built far from city center - worldwide - just in order to get enough free land to do so.

It's still overcast and kind of dreary. The scenery outside the bus slowly changes from farmland to old-style decrepit low houses - then slowly gives way to brand-new Western-looking condos, then higher-and-higher-rise buildings.

As we drive, Chen offers to tell us what animal we are - from the Chinese zodiac. I'm a Sheep. Kathy is a Monkey. They are determined in a 12-year cycle - so your year of birth determines your "sign". In the process, everyone on the bus eventually yells out their year of birth - and Kathy and I firmly confirm that we're the youngest there - by almost a decade. This group is getting around quite well, but it is another reminder to me to "do while you're still young enough to be ABLE to do - and enjoy": we're glad that we're getting this experience so "young".

We finally approach The City as sun sets. And Shanghai, like other Chinese cities we see - has been lit. Beautiful colored strips of light adorn all of the tall buildings and even the highways - and flash light shows for a few hours each evening. Really cool. The sky line is very tall - and wide. Shanghai has more than 19 Million people - which is more than double the "greater New York City" population.

We thread our way past the site of "Shangai Expo" - the World's Fair opening up *this week*. The fair grounds are huge and we drive over and past it for maybe 10 minutes - peering out the windows of the bus then back into a stand of highrises. The architectures of the buildings are specifically designed to be striking - and we're told that over 300 high rise skyscrapers have been created there in just the last decade or so. A fevered pace of building and construction. But tucked in around the city are collections of old-style houses and parks, too, so the view is always-changing. The highway is a true *high* way - elevated perhaps 50 feet above ground level so I get a feeling of "flying low" through the city. The blue lights are the *bottom* of the highway.

It is beautiful. It is huge. It is NEW. It is *clean*. It is definitely cosmopolitan. It feels like a new, clean, hip, New York City.

We pull up to our pre-arranged dinner spot lit and beautiful - and ride the escalator to the 2nd floor to our familiar group of tables with lazy-susan's in the middle. As we take our seats, one of our co-travellers who has been - well - getting a reputation for being a bit grumpy - leans in and confides "I don't like Chinese (food)".

I nearly burst out laughing. And it gives me a good reminder to "find the good where you are instead of focussing on the bad". WHY would you pay to go on a trip where you know you "don't like the food"? Of course, that wasn't the only thing he didn't like. Seemed like he was constantly grumbling to himself - in this amazing, colorful, surprising country. I just have to smile in memory and remind myself to NOT become that guy - regardless of *what* I'm doing.

A short trip to the Shanghai Hilton. Elegant. Beautiful. Very high-rise (maybe 75 stories?). We wind up on the 30th floor and get familiar with the elevator and sharing it for plenty of traffic. Beautiful view.

I hook up my laptop and find FACEBOOK!!! and Blogspot!!! The hotel is charging double the "usual" rate to hookup to the internet ($15 per day), but they apparently have their own un-filtered access - perhaps their own satellite link - so the content-blocking of the Chinese government - has been circumvented. Nice to be able to get to whatever I want again. And a reminder of how - well - silly - it is for the Chinese government to *try* to censor information: it's available anyway. I get to catch up on my "internet fix" for a bit.

Then we decide to explore just a bit on our own. Down the elevator and out onto the street. Up onto a nice pedestrian walkway - elevated under the highway - and over to Nanjing Road: the "shopping mecca" - or so we've been told.

The intersection starts with an old monastery right there in the center of town - right next to an 8-story high shopping Mall - look to the right of the monastery to see the mall.

Nanjing Road has been decorated with lights in the trees which all change color together - slowly cycling between 4 or 5 different colors. Quite pretty - as we walk hand-in-hand down the street - passing big-name Western-brand stores that are too high-end for *us* to ever shop in - all of the places that spend more on advertising than on merchandise - the places where you don't buy things unless you're just trying to impress someone with the label.

But it is a nice walk for a half-hour or so and a nice romantic introduction to Shanghai.

Back up and over the pedestrian walkway and to the Hilton. And to bed. Here we are in *Shanghai* at the end of our 6th day.