Shanghai & Me

here's a few pics courtesy of the ross harris collection

my arm on the shanghai subway

the pearl tower at night

shanghai food is AMAZING ! and more similar to what westerners typically think of chinese food.

Shanghai Day 3: Noche Buena

this day was a super tourist day for us. our first day was rainy and a little gross, but the weather got better the longer we stayed.

"dork with skyline"

i don't remember what this part of the city is called, but it was really pretty and packed with people and tourist shops. and a starbucks.

a korean tourist, one of the many at the yuyuan gardens near those giant red buildings.

in the yuyuan gardens, it'd be more magical and amazing if there weren't a jillion tourists.

one of many markets selling xmas things and other things.

Shanghai Day 2

this is another skyscraper area in the main center of the city called people's square. there are millions of stores, a big park, a bunch of tall buildings with bright lights ad giant tv's. the shanghai museum, and other fun things.

a lot of the city also consists of shikumen (pron. SHR-ku-MAen) which are 19th century housing with mixed european and chinese ideas and styles for urban living. shanghai's streets vary from these scenes to rich european art nouveau styles, and classic 30's and 40's art deco. there are also enormous areas with brand new giant luxury stores from every clothing brand you know from countries the world over

the shanghai museum was hands down the best museum i've seen in china. early on, when i first got here i mentioned in a previous post about the shoddy quality of beijing's museums but the very high quality of it's gallery scene. shanghai's the complete opposite, the museums have great items and impeccable presentation while the galleries seem mostly lacking.

arroz

a gallery with really amazing architecture but really wack art and a much to high entry fee. but it's a small example of the often eccentric but beautiful architecture the city constantly surprises you with.

Shanghai Day 1

lots and lots of light rain our first morning there but we walked a lot of the older part of the city for the first time

this is on the waterfront of the river dividing the city, it's an old part of the city packed with tall, ornate buildings ranging from the 1880's to the early 1940's.

above and below: this is what's across from those beautiful, old buildings. that is the new economic center of the city; and back in the rainy haze is the jin mao building, the tallest in china. we made a point to walk along here as often as possible on the trip just to believe it, it's so crazy to see a skyline like that exist.

Shanghai Surprise!

ross and i arrived in shanghai yesterday morning to celebrate christmas here. we couldn't make it home so we decided a vacation would be the second best way to celebrate it. this city is unreal beautiful and feels like the future somehow slipped into our realm... or something. pictures will come in the next few days, in the meanwhile i'll post again before x-mas, but just in case happy christmas and whatnot to everyone! :)

i've been pretty sick this week :(

i started my week pretty normally, but by tuesday afternoon my throat began to ache just a little. when i made it home i felt like i was about an hour away from a big, big cold. then within a few hours i got a fever. the medicine, o.j., and multi-vitamins came out and my temperature continued to shoot up and up. tuesday night was sleepless, and wednesday was one of those days where you experience life as if it was much slower and had a heavy fishbowl stuck over your head. wednesday night was sleepless, thursday was another obfuscated bed-ridden day. i finally lost the fever by saturday morning but the i still have really strong throat pain, and sought some crazy chinese cure. hopefully i'll feel 100% soon.
i did manage to do some book reading at home and newspaper reading online. i followed my tradition of watching fellini movies when sick, this time it was "la dolce vita" and "nights of cabiria". i also found a good article in sunday's new york times about beijing. they have a column on sunday's travel section called "36 hours" where they describe worthwhile things to do in a city if you happen to find yourself there over a weekend or something like that 36 hours in bejing here . silvia, ross, and i went xmas shopping today, which was weird to feel like the only ones here this time of year out looking for xmas presents. there are a few places to get xmas your stuff but it's all crappy and dollar store-tastic. i'll keep writing about how christmas progresses.





more of us

just a few fun pics

Beijing new and old

a few images of beijing modern and what's left of the ancient

these towers are one of beijing's newest malls and office buildings at the xizhimen ( pron. SI-jer-MAen) subway station. the mall just opened in october

this is the new cctv (the national television channel) tower. it's enormous and will be one of the most impressive new buildings in the beijing skyline. the two towers will meet horizontally at the middle creating a large negative space between them. i believe it'll open this summer.

yesterday ross took me to the summer palace, a large 18th century complex with a giant artificial lake, parks, and temples. it's where the last empress lived until the fall of the monarchy early in the 20th century and was spared by the maoists. it's really really beautiful and incredibly just within the modern city boundary though originally it was well outside old beijing

this is what a shoreline looks like as winter begins to freeze over the water. super crazy, i don't recall ever seeing this before. in my mind a shoreline is still a sort of beach. i still don't really get winter.

this is one of the bridges in the artificial lake within the summer palace leading to "the temple of fortunate rains and excessive moisture." kinda funny.