My main objectives were to re-visit Nanjing lu while I walked towards the Bund on Zhongshan lu. My last attempt at Nanjing was mostly in and around the area but I never finished Nanjing lu east so I thought this would be a good start to the day. I then was going to head South towards YuYuan Gardens in Old Shanghai (Nanshi) to get a better view of 'Old China''. (Of course this area is much more of a tourist trap than anything but the buildings are authentic and well kept.)
We took the bus from Qingpu to Shanghai Downtown around 10:35 and arrived a little after 11, which was good considering it was a Saturday. Of course by the time the bus arrived at our stop it was standing room only and we were left to hold on while the bus went barrelling down the highway. The good thing about a bus packed like a can of sardines is that when any bump or sudden stop kicked in, we were all too wedged in to really notice much.
I was glad to see that our final stop in Shanghai was very close to People's Square and easy walking distance to Nanjing Lu E. The unfortunate thing was that the weather was a tad chilly and I had dressed for slightly warmer weather... All the more reason to get going and start walking. Once Bob showed me the directions, I was off on my own.
Having seen much of Nanjing before, I was able to really focus on what was around me, the things that I remembered, and things that were still new. Saturday was especially interesting because it was Valentine's Day. This holiday has recently become popular with the younger crowd and is even beginning to show more importance over their traditional love day which happens on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Of course this means that tacky floral bouquets were all over Nanjing, being sold by many sellers hoping for a quick buck.
Towards the end of the road, I happen to fall into an underground commodities market. It was brimming with small knickknacks and little souvenir bobbles but as I went lower into the building, I soon noticed that there was much more: I had found myself in a huge fakes market. I had been to one in New York, where they would take brazen tourists down small alleys into dark rooms with ''the best'' counterfeit goods you could buy. This was like that, but much bigger. Of course I was like a mouse to a hawk and I was soon assaulted with many different options ‘‘Miss Miss, bag for you?'', ''pretty lady watch fo your boyfend?''
The trick is to ask for their best stuff, which is usually kept in the back somewhere. This particular seller's things were in the back, down many little alleys and into a room full of stock. I was then shown the ''good stuff'' hidden behind some bags. Needless to say, I picked up a nice Montblanc and was able to haggle the price from $112 (''Best price for you!'') to $35. I know that I overpaid by at least 15 dollars but I was growing tired of the back and forth and left it as is. I don't even want to know how much a native speaker would have been able to get the watch for. Around 10 I'm assuming.
This is one aspect of shopping here that I can't stand, but it's the price that I pay for being a foreigner.
Once I had had enough of the heckling, I left with my prize and made my way out, back towards the bund. It was a particularly cold day and the humidity was around 55% which meant that there was going to be a lot of fog. Fog here is a mixture of water and dust as the thick humid air holds allot of whatever is kicking around. As I came closer to the water's edge, I could see the outlines of Pudong's new skyline, and when I turned around to where I came from, I could see the old buildings of the Bund. To be honest, I wasn't particularly interested in seeing these attractions as they are incredibly touristy and overhyped but I was interested in its history.
Before the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 (which ended western imperialist rule but also caused the economy to take a sharp dive for the worse for about two decades,) the Bund (or Waitan in Chinese) had been the financial, political, commercial and cultural center of western powers in Shanghai.
After Shanghai was opened as one of five "Treaty Ports" in the Treaty of Nanjing (I looked this up) that ended the Opium War in 1842, the Bund became the financial and political center of the international community (and indeed of much of China). It was China's ''Wall Street'', as Shanghai's financial market became the third largest in the world. The twenty-four major structures that make up The Bund have changed little externally since the 1930s. All were constructed in western-inspired styles --classical, Gothic, renaissance, eclectic and modern, and have been called a ‘museum of international architecture’.
Because of this I was expecting so much. Unfortunately, once I arrived the buildings themselves looks a little old as not much restoration work had been done and some of them looked pretty miserable. China, and especially Shanghai, is in such a mood to catch up to the rest of the world that it soon forgets it's old buildings, its charm - the Thing that gives it character and history. Now the only thing you see in Shanghai is the struggle between new and old, where new is demolishing old and replacing it with ''modern'' steel structures. I am glad I got to see some of it before it's completely destroyed. One example of this is Pudong. This part of Shanghai used to be rice paddies just 10-15 years ago. It's now an ever expanding farm of steel structures that loom over the city.
I didn't step more than 5 steps onto the deck of the Bund area before I was asked to have a picture taken with someone, this soon followed with two more requests, then three. At this point I was comfortable enough to ask someone to take a picture of me and Pudong, which they happily did. Thinking back I really wished I started charging for pictures... I would have made a killing. This is something else that I really have not been able to get used to - the fact that I am this foreign. I long to go places anonymously and sometimes think of buying a black wig just to get around without being bothered or stared at.
Oh dear, that will be for another day.
By the time I made it across the Bund, I had developed quite a headache and decided that what I needed the most was sleep. I had been fighting a cold for a week now and the last thing I needed was a night out and no sleep. When I got to the pickup area for Qingpu buses, I had no way of finding out which was the milkrun and which was the quick bus, so I just took a guess, jumped on, and 1 hour and thirty minutes and a scenic drive later, arrived home.
Old Shanghai and a night out will just have to wait.
xx love.
Pudong Skyline
Pay close attention to all of the buildings... so many!
Chinese Tourists
Look closely... this is a restaurant on a boat.
Yours truly, thanks to some new friends haha
One of my fans... had to get a picture.
