Why is nothing straightforward? We asked Simber to pick us up early and take us to the airport for a midday flight, much less stress than using public transport to get there, especially with two large bags, two carry-on bags and my Rollator. (You might remember I used Simber all the time when I was ‘Clipper travelling’). We woke up to a message informing us that the car picking us up had a puncture! This seems to be a recurring theme with us recently. JD managed to get two punctures on his car on the same occasion, plus the Saab tyres had perished and needed replacing. Maybe we should sell our services to KwikFit. Thankfully it wasn’t a disaster, Simber sent a replacement car and we were off.
JD discovered that BA first class was much cheaper than the Chinese airlines, so it seemed silly not to ‘fly the flag’. The only reason I can think it was so much cheaper is that the flight was longer as they could not go over Russian airspace. Whatever the reason, we had a quick bite in the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow: I didn’t realise it had an actual Concorde nose cone on display.
We were on a fairly old plane so the headroom was not brilliant, but as I intended to sit or sleep for most of the journey it didn’t matter.
The good news was that my screen was working so I could watch Barbie, having missed it last year. I’m not sure I told you in Post 156, but JD managed to watch it on the flight to Dar es Salaam. I had planned to catch up on the flight home but ’twas not to be. Only a year late.
A mere thirteen hours later we arrived in Shanghai. JD went quite often on business and the other two live there but it was all very new and exciting to me. It’s one of the world’s largest seaports, one of the first to open up to Western trade, and a main industrial centre for China. It’s the largest Chinese city, population around 30 million. That’s nearly half of the total UK.
I always thought Shanghai had been a French colony, but that’s too simplistic. Certainly, the elegant buildings show the French influence, but it was the British that had more impact. This was due to the Opium Wars, of which I’d heard but never studied. In brief, around the 1840’s, the British wanted Chinese goods (especially porcelain and tea) but were unwilling to pay in silver and China did not want any British goods in return. Opium was being grown in India (under British rule) and so the British decided to smuggle that into China as payment. In 1839 the Chinese government decided to stop this. The merchants who were buying it were somewhat upset and asked the British government to intervene, which they did by sending along the Navy. They defeated the Chinese and as a consequence Shanghai was surrendered to the British, French and Americans, and opened to unlimited foreign trade. It’s also when Britan was given a 99-year lease on Hong Kong. I’m sure I can find a book about the Opium Wars, it sounds well worth learning about.
The following is an interesting article on the French influence and has some pictures of places we’ve seen that might feature in my blog.
https://www.culture-shock-shanghai.com/blog/the-myth-and-reality-of-french-influence-in-shanghai
We’d arranged for a hotel car to pick us up from the airport. As G&Y were there at arrivals to greet us (with one of the bouquets you saw last time), all four of us plus all the luggage squeezed into the car and off we went in great style. Well, if you’re going to travel first class then get the hotel to pick you up, it has to be a Rolls Royce, doesn’t it?
Once we’d unpacked we headed off for our first Chinese lunch, in the midst of lanes where I’d not find my way again. It was a very traditional place, as soon as we arrived tea was poured (and kept refreshed throughout). The dishes kept coming and we kept eating. (I’m not going to detail all the meals we had unless they were really special, I have photos to impress you and I run out of other things to talk about. The vast majority were Chinese and most of the time our chopsticks worked). Yes we had rice and noodles and dumplings a lot but there were nearly all different (and delicious). However, saying they were Chinese is like saying we went to Europe and that all meals were European. Despite the face JD appears to be pulling here, we didn’t eat anything we’d not have at home.
As I mentioned in the Last Post, many of the Chinese cities have grown very quickly, and Shanghai is no exception. The Bund is possibly what you think of when you hear the word Shanghai. It’s about a mile of riverfront with some incredible historic buildings from the 1920’s and 30’s along it. We didn’t get a chance to walk it this time, there were so many people due to the special light show described below (you always need an excuse to go back). The buildings were lucky to survive as during the Cultural Revolution of Mao in the 1960’s there was movement against the ‘Four Olds’: Ideas, culture, customs and habits, with many buildings being destroyed. There was an international outcry regarding the Shanghai architecture so they were saved. There’s a lot of information about them here, maybe I don’t need to go back after all.
That evening we had cocktails on the roof bar of a hotel, seeing the light show on the Bund celebrating 35 years of ‘modern’ Pudong. This area, on the river opposite the Bund, was once the slums but is now home to some of the world’s tallest buildings. (I realise those two statements could both be true at the same time but don’t think so). For the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, thousands of residents were relocated from the area along with more than 200 factories and a shipyard. The infrastructure for Shanghai’s transportation was significantly improved, as we found when catching a train later in the holiday. None of this gives us a 35-year anniversary though? What happened in 1990? Aha, found it: celebrating the launch of the modernisation. I realise we were in the right place at the right time, the light show only lasted from April 18th to 20th, exactly the nights we were there.
The last image in the previous Post was of the light show, as is today’s header: here are some more. You can also go onto YouTube and see it in action (just turn off the sound, it’s irritating).
On our second day we inspected G&Y’s flat and their cat (she hid from us so no photo, imagine our Polly with two eyes). I might possibly have complained that I was not allowed any hot cross buns before we left the UK, as you can only eat them on Good Friday (supposedly). Yangtze went halfway across Shanghai to find me one. My hero! It came with a chocolate sauce, which was novel (although many in the UK this year were odd flavours, maybe I’d been spared).
After testing G’s usual (and cheap) breakfast pancake outside their compound we pottered around, visiting an indoor market, sightseeing in a taxi, walking through parks watching people doing their exercises or dancing, and having photos of their pets taken. There was one very cross looking cat but I didn’t manage to get a photo so here’s a well-behaved dog instead.
Breaking my promise already on meals, that night we went to a Michelin 3 star restaurant called Crab Painting. We had crab, needless to say, and discovered that the name derives from the dishes, which are ‘paintings’ made up from fish and crab.
I know I said there was no bar culture, but just to prove me wrong we went to watch a jazz band at the Peace Hotel. The traffic meant we were about an hour late, but it was ok as they were the bar band, not a concert. In the Guinness Book of Records they appear as the longest playing band, having been there 41 years. I’m not sure if they are the original band members but they weren’t no spring chickens. Good traditional music plus cocktails, what more could you want for. A book I read recently mentioned a Shanghai Shimmer cocktail. I didn’t see any on offer but might have a go at making it once I’ve bought the ingredients: Whiskey, apricot brandy, mango vodka, passionfruit juice and champagne. Or just stick to the champagne.
On Sunday we visited the Yu Garden. Despite the name this is not a garden but lots of ‘old’ buildings (some 400 years old, some new), a rock garden with carp and artistic water lilies. It was one of the busiest places we visited but still easy to get round and somehow tranquil despite the number of people.
https://www.chinahighlights.com/shanghai/attraction/yuyuan-garden.htm
Shanghai is on the confluence of the Suzhou (the lower reach of Wusong River) and the Huangpu rivers (a tributary of the Yangtze). We took a boat trip on the Suzhou creek, just off the main Huangpu River. JD and I didn’t realise it was one way so didn’t take many pictures. We saw a fisherman, showing how clean the rivers have become (assuming he was catching fish). We had an amusing episode at the beginning when one of the passengers was waving frantically at a chap running along the riverbank. I thought he was just a friend waving her off, but he’d actually missed the embarkation and was hoping they’d stop for him.
We left Shanghai for Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors on Monday 21st April but I think that will do for today. They can wait until the next time. Farewell Shanghai.
George and John's boating trip no longer 