I came to realize my blog was lagging behind my trip through China. There are several reasons for it:
1: Facebook, Youtube & Google services are blocked which makes it more challenging to publish content on the blog
2: My days and evenings are really busy; I’m seeing and doing so much that I’m losing motivation to write.
Anyway, that post will be about Shanghai. I had high expectations when getting there: Shanghai is meant to be mainland China’s most international city. In truth, I would spot in the streets about 10-15 Westerners a day in this city of 20 million inhabitants. There were a bit more Chinese understanding English but not that many! The city is really modern and filled with skyscrapers. I was happy on my first day to see the sky after 1 week in Beijing, it only lasted a day but I had enough time to take some good shots. The financial center of Shanghai is impressive and you can really feel the area is splashed with cash.
Everywhere I go, modern high-rise buildings, Chinese with fancy clothes and cars. In Europe, China is being described as developing country but anything I see here, from the infrastructures, buildings, luxury shops and locals spending power makes me questioned whether I’m coming from a developed country. The mood here is really upbeat and future keeps getting brighter; light years away from continental Europe surviving on cheap credit/low interest rates.
I headed towards the former French concession of Shanghai (which was French up to the 40’s). I loved the area, the streets were lined up with old trees, providing shelter from the sun and had some lovely parks; all of it as any typical French boulevards. You can there walk without having to spend your time in people jams like most of the Chinese cities (probably not many Chinese can afford to live in this district).
It’s so warm outside that nobody uses dryer, clothes hanging all over the place even on electrical wire!
On the first night, I went to the riverbank. I was approached by a pretty Chinese girl asking for help taking a picture of her. I obliged, then she chatted me up and took me to visit a Tea Ceremony. The ceremony was nice and tea I drunk really tasty but the bill too: 1200 renmibi (about £120)! I managed to reduce the cost to £50 by only paying my share and left thinking that the standard of living in Shanghai might be really high if locals could afford so expensive tea. Over the next days, I was approached several times by Chinese tourists with a perfect English asking me if I wanted to join them to a tea ceremony. I started to wonder .. and I Googled Tea Ceremony Shanghai in Google: SCAM !!! A pretty good one I would say
I met a local named Anfia and went to spend the weekend visiting Hangzhou. Unfortunately, It was really rainy and going around in that city as you need to catch taxy which are in limited quantity so competition is fierce, especially when heaving tropical rain is pouring all over the place !
Random Video:
Took on Tueday 15 an high speed train to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province; hoping to escape the humidity on the coastline.
