Early plane flight. It's interesting how we react to different guides. Li, from Xian, was friendly enough, but had some very annoying speech patterns. One of them was that she wouldn't shut up. Every second, she was talking, whether or not there was anything new to say. She repeated herself on everything. She tried, but it got on our nerves.
We awoke to a beautiful blue sky day. It might have changed a lot about our feelings of Xian, but I doubt we're coming back to check it out. Maybe we're both getting Paul's SAD, and hating the gray weather.
We arrived in Shanghai to more of the same weather. We were met by "Charlie", who said we couldn't pronounce his real name. Driving around this city of 20 million, we were amazed to see that it is built on a very human scale. The land here is very flat, and you can see for miles. It is all city, but there are low buildings and medium sized buildings and a few very tall buildings. Yes, it goes on and on, but it feels very manageable from the ground. Despite the mist, we could see the architecture is very varied and interesting. Lunch was at another touristy place, but at least there were lots of Chinese there also. We overlooked the river and the Bund area, where most of the buildings dated to the 1930s. An oasis of classicism in the middle of modern.
After lunch, we were delivered to a shopping street. Again, this was not only westerners running around. Since it was now raining, we bought some umbrellas and sat at a coffee place to people watch.
We had to negotiate with Charlie about Monday. Ann had booked a separate Jewish tour of Shanghai, and the conflicted with their plans for us. Charlie realized that he could give us our Monday dinner tonight, and then we would be free to go to the Expo. The only problem was the tickets for the Expo, since we were booked as a "group" at a specific time to go in. So we will abandon those and just walk in when we get there. Chalk it up to stupidity tax.
Dinner was at another touristy place with dancing girls. Again, most of the crowd was not Caucasian, but the meal was again nondescript. I fear most of Shanghai will be like this for the food. Tonight had been our chance to be on our own.
After dinner, we tried to walk around, but the rain and wind really prevented much walking. We went back to our hotel (one of the tall buildings), and had a drink from the bar on the 50th floor. Even with the mist, the view was spectacular. Many of the buildings have lights, either on the upper floors and roof, or on the sides. There was a kaleidoscope of colors. The elevated highways running through this part of town have blue lights underneath, giving a blue glow to the streets below. Many of the buildings have the same light pattern on them, with a blue neon light running around the upper floors with the white lights above. Cute. We could see the Expo, which is about a mile or so from our hotel. It is on either side of the river, with a bridge joining the halves. The bridge had a rainbow of colors. Very very pretty.
Interestingly, as we drove and walked around, I got the feeling of less traffic and less craziness. The drivers still barge right ahead, but appear to stop for people in crosswalks. There are definitely less cars on the road than in Beijing and Xian. Maybe because it's Saturday night, but that doesn't seem too good an explanation. More as the week progresses.
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