Shanghai, Shanglow

Hello from Shanghai. I've been here for almost a week. I know that most of you have been expecting a blog post much sooner than today, but it's very difficult to log on to my Blog. I've learned that many sites I am used to viewing, are not accessible here in China (like my personal website, Youtube, Blogger).

I am learning a lot about Shanghai, and China in general. Before I arrived in China, I admit that I had a somewhat naive view of what I would expect when I got here. I guess I had stars in my eyes - thinking that Shanghai was the center of what is the future of the world. I think I was wrong. A bit.

Shanghai is indeed an interesting city. I believe that Shanghai likes to refer to itself as an 'International, World Class City'. After having been here for a week, I am not so sure. I think it has a lot of growing up, before it can join the ranks of London, Paris, New York...or even Vancouver. I am not qualified to state what it is that it needs to meet that esoteric criteria, but I can just tell it doesn't possess it, yet.

Granted, one of the things that makes Shanghai exciting, is that is it constantly changing. This city is under perpetual construction. It seems that every major road is dug up these days. Shanghai is the host of the World Expo in 2010, so the preparations are in full force. I am sure they will put on a great Expo, but for now, the city is in total chaos.

A few days ago, I visited the number one tourist attraction in Shanghai - The Yuyuan Gardens. I didn't do a lot of research in advance, because I wanted it to be fresh when I got there. But I was pretty disappointed, because I was expecting to see an area of Shanghai that was authentic and historical. What I saw was a recreation of a Shanghai of the past. The Gardens and village portend to be a village from the 1500's. But what I learned was that it was destroyed in the 1800's opium wars, and recreated in the 1950's as a tourist attraction. So it was very commercial, complete with a McDonald's and Starbucks in the middle of the village (no, I didn't go in).

Some other recent observations about Shanghai:

- This city loves to shop. And there are a lot of great malls here. No bargains to be had, though. I have not bought anything yet, because I have not seen anything here that I haven't seen elsewhere. There are 5 or 6 Best Buy stores here, too. I went in to one today, and was impressed. The product range was extensive. They even carried a lot of seriously expensive Nikon lenses that most high end camera stores in Canada would not stock.

- The Metro is cheap, fast and efficient. I've had no problem working out my way around the city. There are about 8 or 9 train lines, and they keep building more (see above re: perpetual construction).

- The city is huge. There are about 18 million people here. My initial observation is that about 2 million of them are...um....normal regular world citizens. And the other 16 Million people are completely unaware that there is a world outside of Shanghai. I've had to dodge spit bombs from random people on the street more times than I can count. People hang their laundry to dry on trees and power lines down every street.

- This city loves to drink. Or at least they seem to be very competitive about finding drinkers. I happily obliged one establishment last night, during their "All you can drink" promotion. Normally, I avoid buffets because I don't think they are good for the value. But I made the exception this time. I was glad I did. Though, I was a bit worse for wear today.

I am here for another 8 days or so, before I head to Beijing. It's been raining a lot lately, so I have not been out too much. But it's supposed to start getting nice tomorrow. I hope to get out to shoot more photos soon.