Picture blast from Shanghai June '09

Shanghai
In mid-June I had an opportunity to travel to China for the first time in my life. I had tried to get to see some of it already some four years earlier during a stopover in Beijing, but got stuck at the airport, so this was finally my chance to plunge in this fascinating ancient culture of east.

I spent ten days in Shanghai for a tour performance, but the city and culture themselves are what I really want to share with you.

The first impression of Shanghai was something totally different than I was expecting. Our hotel was some 30 minutes up north from downtown, so there was no skycrapers and "Bladerunner-cityscapes". Everything seemed more lowrise, green and open than I had anticipated. Surprising, indeed. The climate was hot and humid, and one can't really see the blue sky through never-dissolving fog.

A view from my 13th floor hotel room.
Across the road Fudan University campus.

The new
I made some trips to downtown, and I encountered the infrastructure I was expecting. During the taxi drive one can see it all: the multi-layered motorways, futuristic buildings and neon signs.

Three storeys at this point.

A part of cityscape through a car window.

Modern adaptation of the Sauron's eye?

Nanjing Rd. in the evening.

The old
The Old Shanghai is something really worth seeing, -if you have the guts to face all the other tourists. Yuyuan garden in the heart of this old town is breathtakingly idyllic labyrinth-like place with dozens of old style houses and stone arrangements. Despite all the other folks there it still manages to give you a peaceful atmosphere and feeling of time standing still.

The old and new in the same frame.
A house on the edge of old town and the tallest
building in Shanghai on the background.

A narrow lane of Old Shanghai.

Yuyuan garden.

Yuyuan garden.

Me in the garden, pic taken by Sajad Rahmani.

In the old town we were looking for a traditional tea ceremony, but couldn't unfortunately find one, since english is not very widely spoken anywhere, except for haggling the prices. -A tea ceremony would have been something soothing after the whole day of sweaty exploring. Luckily we did find this local girl (one scratching her nose in the photo below) who was kind enough to show us to a tea house and join us for some tea tasting. Very sweet of her. And the tea flavors were delicious too, something totally different from Lipton's (sorry britons, heh). Even me, not so big tea-lover, felt compelled to buy some =)

Our gang in a tea house in old town.

Next canditate: Jasmin.

These were the very mid-range priced teas,
only 40-60 € for a cake (diam. app 17 cm.)

Zhouzhuang, the water village
Some two hours in a bus, and you'll reach a little village called Zhouzhuang, also known as the Venice of the Orient.

This village was built sometime starting around 14th century and is renowned by it's water ways, channels and many bridges. One can board a (wo)man-powered boat anywhere and see the surroundings from a different perspective. If you throw in couple of yuans to bargain, the lady rowing the boat will sing to you.

I spent a whole roasting hot day exploring the old houses and culture there. - A very beautiful and touristy spot, see for yourselves.

Such a beautiful day.

One of many bridges.

Boats lining up, or a traffic jam =)

Songs about the history of the village and it's people.

Ancient theatre of Zhouzhuang, nice and calm atmosphere.

For the end of the day the organizers of our trip had reserved a real treat for us; An 90 minute spectacle staged on a floating venue just outside the actual water village. The bottomline in the performance was to depict the history and traditions of the village, but the outcome was something like Disney meets post-Mao efficiency and tv-quizzes. Although they had it all; smoke-, fire- and water-effects, four gigantic video-beamers, approximately hundred moving lights and the whole spectrum of all the colors possible, the experience was absolutely painstakingly hideous, sorry to say. The four seasons of this idyllic village among other things were just kitschy.

This is winter, as I recall.

Just a small clip to prove my point =)

There was something endearing also at the end of the day. Along the walkways from the venue locals had set up dozens of these figurines, lit up from the inside. they looked sort of cute in the dark evening.

Traditional dragon.

Bugs of a sort and a fallen snail.

A real bug, on the street, size app. match-box.

Food
Apropos bugs, that reminds me of food. No, this time I didn't eat anything suspicious, I think. Although, there would have been everything on the menu, staring from intestines going all the way up to pig balls, just to mention few.

Anyway, China is a culinary adventure, but that we all already knew. But to get to the origin, really my friends, I must say, is something extraordinary. The sweet and sour is somewhat totally different experience and that's just the starting point of it! I haven't eaten so well in ages! And 95% of the stuff I tasted was amazing. One great opportunity was the conference banquets, where the food just kept on coming to the table, dish after dish. I was forced to realise that I was still tasting everything even long after there was no place for anything new anymore, but it all just looked so yummy! So, keep it spinning!

Chinese banquet at it's first round, very spacey still.
-Both in the table and in me XD!

One of the best picks on the menus:
roasted oysters with garlic and chili

The food is staring at me...?

...or is it all in my head?

Never having been a big friend of dumplings and dim sum, o-o-boy have I seen the light! Thanks for this goes to Charlie, who showed us something we would never have discovered on our own. He also took us to this Chinese Grill Joint, very humble looking establishment that served absolutely gorgeous things, all impaled in skewers. It is also true in China, that the best food ones can find, if they follow the locals and forget about the Mac-Do and Pizza-Hut.

Chinese barbeque joint; just stick it.

I really, really liked Shanghai and I wish I'll have a chance to visit it again sometime in the future. But the main reason for good times is always the good gang to hang out with. So, thanks to Maria, Beata, Kenya, Monica, Charlie and Sajad and others, for great fun in the east! Hope to see you all soon and do it again!

Passing time at the airport playing Yatzy.
Our flight was delayed for 2 hours because of suspected influenza.
The whole plane was desinfected and the crew and 100 passengers
quarantined for 10 days.
Luckily it didn't happen on our flight in.
That would have been all of Shanghai for me then =)

They do take it seriously:
health officials boarded our plane
and took the temperature of each and every passenger.
Zap me. Far out...

Homebound: Turku archipelaco, midsummer.