China – Shanghai – Day 2

There is construction everywhere in Shanghai.  The Bund riverside promenade walkway is under remodeling, high rises are going up left and right, and there is dust and scaffolding everywhere.  This is partially because Shanghai is a bustling metropolis bound to take over as the world’s financial center in 2020 and also due to Shanghai holding the World Expo in 2010.  To learn more about this expansion, we visited the Urban Planning museum which detailed the plan for coping with Shanghai’s spread and how to properly implement infrastructure and sustainability into that future.  There was also a floor dedicated to the upcoming world expo which Shanghai is putting a lot of money and pride into.  There were several interesting visual and architectural elements in Shanghai’s site design as well as for each countries pavilion.  The mascot for the expo is Haibao or the blue character seen in the picture below.  The mascot is supposed to emulate the Chinese character for people but quite frankly it looks like a tooth with a wisp of toothpaste on its head to me.

We then headed across the street to the Shanghai Museum which is known as being one of the best museums in China.  We viewed the museum’s extensive jade, coin, painting, and bronze collections.  Some of the jade pieces were really intricate especially considering the tools they had at the time – I especially liked the jade dragons.  I’ve always had a fascination with dragons since I was very young.

For dinner, we strolled over to Xin tiandi, a rebuilt yuppie area that basically looked like a reconstructed piece of the United States.  On a side note, there were so many McDonalds, Starbucks, Coldstones, and Haagen Daaz stores everywhere – the first 2 I understand and expected globally but I don’t understand the abundance of ice cream shops.  We went over to this area to try some of the most Xiao, or pork dumplings in a delicious skin filled with meaty juice.  They lived up to the hype.  The quality of the meat, the texture and thickness of the skin, and the flavor of the juice were superb. 

As we walked back home we noticed the street was adorned with bleachers, the trees were adorned with Christmas and lantern lights, and small triangular flags were tied between trees that made it look like a marathon was going to be run through the streets the next day.  Upon closer inspection, the flags said ‘Shanghai Tourism Festival’, and there was to be a parade on the street the next day. Although we didn’t see the parade, lots of other special events occurred over the next few days.  One day I was walking down Nanjing road to go to the ATM and there was a herd of people dressed up in Chicken costumes.  What that signified…I will never know.