Shanghai Transportation - FAQ 2
May 18th 2006 05:13
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Journey to the East - Dim Sim Land Adventures
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Shanghai Transportation - FAQ 1
May 16th 2006 09:25
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Shanghai Sights: The Bund to Pudong 3
May 11th 2006 02:57
The next tourist hotspot we headed for also proved to be the most relaxing, a walk through Pu Dong’s Lu Jia Zui District where the Oriental pearl is located. It always leaves me agape in incredulity when I recall how this place was like 10 years ago – broken down residential districts, garbage dumps, contaminated creeks overshadowed by looming factories which made the area seem more similar to the setting of Half Life 2 than anything else – all that’s missing are the giant revolving blades and head crab zombies.
Now, the place has become the financial hub of China and it is as if the renovation had taken place overnight.
I waited while my companions took happy snaps of the glimmering Jin Mao Tower and the International Conference Centre,
then took a taxi to our last destination of the day, the famed Century Park, a huge eco-park divided into four seasonally themed areas complete with its own musical fountain, Bonsai Park, bamboo forest, an Isle of Birds and Montreal Garden, all for a mere 10 Yuan (2AUD).
I found the animal relief wall there to be a nice touch as well, with its depiction of more than 29 animals native to the Asia Pacific in various styles and creative expressions.
Like any other major metropolitan park, Century Park emanated a sensation of self assurance for the tourist with “whatever your tastes are, I’ll be sure to cater for it.”
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Pudong in the 80's. Now compare this scene with the HL2 screenshot below:
Uncanny!
Pudong Today
Ultimate overcompensation: The 88 storey Jin Mao Tower
Century Park front gate
Elephant and pandas on the animal relief
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Shanghai Sights: The Bund to Pudong 2
May 8th 2006 11:24
(Cont. from last post)
After a short meal at one of the over priced restaurants sprinkled along the Promenade, we headed down to the Shanghai Sightseeing Tunnel to cross the Huangpu to Pudong, where the Oriental Pearl beckoned graciously, flaunting her curvaceous outline.
To be honest, the tunnel does well for a manmade attraction overtly publicized through gratuitously stylized photographs of flashing lights, which normally should be avoided at all times. For those who have a predilection for history and culture, the sightseeing tunnel may prove to be of limited interest. Personally, even though I found it to appeal more to stylized sensationalism than anything else, it was short and exciting enough to warrant another ride. We rode for just over a kilometer in a semi opaque silver white carriage in 5 minutes, traversing the entire tunnel covered with entheogenic lights and psychedelic patterns of flowers, marine life, geometric shapes and so on while being cosseted by relaxing electro-synth music.
It is probably better described as the Crack Tequila Experience than a sightseeing attraction, and we came out of it slightly disoriented with an urge to steal a rainbow colored van and start a drum circle.
The flowing patterns and chill-out tunes were however strangely soothing yet commanding – the kind that Pinky and the Brain would have loved to get their paws on for their mass hypnosis device.
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After a short meal at one of the over priced restaurants sprinkled along the Promenade, we headed down to the Shanghai Sightseeing Tunnel to cross the Huangpu to Pudong, where the Oriental Pearl beckoned graciously, flaunting her curvaceous outline.
The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel in its fluorescent glory
The semi-opaque train carriage
We all live in the yellow submarine indeed.
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Shanghai Sights: The Bund to Pudong 1
May 3rd 2006 06:55
In 2006, with a few Japanese and Korean friends, I opened my Shanghai trip with a visit to the Bund, one of the most recognizable architectural symbols of Shanghai. I had been there a few times before and didn’t really want to go again in the chill of winter, but as one comes to discover, a time tested law of nature is that one (male or female) can never reject the requests of puppy-eyed Japanese girls. It’s probably something in their voices that triggers the part of the brain responsible for dopamine release.
The origins of our destination, "Bund", derives from an Anglo-Indian word for an embankment along a muddy waterfront and that is what it was in the beginning when the first British company opened an office there in 1846. 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.
Such was the introduction to the Bund we familiarized ourselves with before embarking on the trip. But the bone biting cold often has a strange effect on girls in that it prevents them from noticing anything but the poor quality of their thin bomber jackets and the regret of choosing style over temperature. When we had made our way through the bone biting cold from Henan Zhonglu Line 2 Metro Station to the edge of the Huangpu River, I reminded my companions to look around and take in the magnificent view. After Shanghai was opened as one of five "Treaty Ports" in the Treaty of Nanjing 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 (behind London and New York), and this prestige is overwhelming, especially now when the ghosts of past glories are superimposed upon Shanghai’s modern prosperity.
The twenty-four major structures, of uneven height along approximately 1.5 kilometers of Zhongshan Lu and the Huangpu River, have changed little externally since the 1930s. All were constructed in western-inspired styles --classical, Gothic, renaissance, eclectic and modern--a reported seventeen styles of architecture.
The Bund has been called a ‘museum of international architecture’, but it was also much more. Here were located the banks, hotels, exclusive clubs, press organizations and headquarters of international concerns as well. Two of my companions cooed excitedly at the view of the famous Art deco style Peace Hotel and decided that they just had to spend at least one night there. The concierge glanced curiously at their attire and looked away, clearly assuming that they would probably freeze before they get through the door anyway.
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The Bund at night
The origins of our destination, "Bund", derives from an Anglo-Indian word for an embankment along a muddy waterfront and that is what it was in the beginning when the first British company opened an office there in 1846. 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.
Chen Yi, one of the founding fathers of the People's Republic of China, gazes out toward Shanghai against the backdrop of global financial giant Citibank.
Such was the introduction to the Bund we familiarized ourselves with before embarking on the trip. But the bone biting cold often has a strange effect on girls in that it prevents them from noticing anything but the poor quality of their thin bomber jackets and the regret of choosing style over temperature. When we had made our way through the bone biting cold from Henan Zhonglu Line 2 Metro Station to the edge of the Huangpu River, I reminded my companions to look around and take in the magnificent view. After Shanghai was opened as one of five "Treaty Ports" in the Treaty of Nanjing 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 (behind London and New York), and this prestige is overwhelming, especially now when the ghosts of past glories are superimposed upon Shanghai’s modern prosperity.
A decadent guardian of the HK Shanghai Bank
The HSBC Building - known to be the 'most beautiful building from the Suez Canal to the Bering Sea' when it was first constructed.
A view of the Peace Hotel
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Interlude: Paradise in China - Sanya Be
May 2nd 2006 04:49
Sanya, situated in the southern Chinese island of Hainan, had only received much international attention after China had feverishly promoted it as a tourism hot spot by hosting Miss World 2003 in this already established local holiday destination
As an interlude to the Shanghai series, we would like to briefly take you to the sandy shores of Sanya city - the tropical paradise in China's south-most state: Hainan Island. It is a holiday destination frequented by local mainlanders during the Chinese summer of July, where the boiling beaches are spotted with holiday-makers. The scene was described vividly by a local as "boiling sea dumplings".
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As an interlude to the Shanghai series, we would like to briefly take you to the sandy shores of Sanya city - the tropical paradise in China's south-most state: Hainan Island. It is a holiday destination frequented by local mainlanders during the Chinese summer of July, where the boiling beaches are spotted with holiday-makers. The scene was described vividly by a local as "boiling sea dumplings".
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Posted By: Bunbury - Category: Hainan Island
Travel Shanghai Part 1: First Impressions
April 27th 2006 10:57
Shanghai's ultra cosmopolitan cityscape, upon first glance, reminds one immediately of Freud. The CBD area, with its abundance of skyscrapers constructed in the most unique of architectural styles, reaffirms man's global enthusiasm for phallic worship and masculine adamancy with splendid visual grandeur.
There is the Jin Mao Tower standing its ground proudly at 88 storeys and 340.1ms, designed to resemble a looming stack of banknotes; the renowned Oriental Pearl which appears on every single panorama postcard of Shanghai and soon in MI3 (possibly playing the transmitter for Tom Cruise to communicate with the aliens who are allegedly the source of human suffering); the cool Bank of China Tower that resembles a firing cannon, among other things; and so many other visual delights that draw the talent and imagination of the world's greatest architects together in one brilliant symphony of economic prosperity. The nightlife that takes place beneath these looming giants hustles and bustles with elusive excitement, tempting the most conservative of travelers with its Siren's call. Hengshan Road, famous for its high-class nightclubs and bars, becomes a palpitating artery flowing with western and eastern pleasures after 9PM, their luxury putting to shame even the more extreme of capitalist excess.
The look of angst and fervor on the faces of Chinese youths while they funk out to Japanese, American and Hong Kong trance music bear no difference from those on the faces of Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and all man seem to be equal for a moment while alcohol flows freely above the guitar riff. Indeed, Shanghai is not just China's window to the world; it's the golden veil shrouding the flaws of the current regime with frightening visual intensity and efficiency.
It is a city of motion and dynamic energy thrown together in a million polar extremes, qualities that the average tourist may find hard to incorporate into his original view of China upon first arriving.
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The tourist-compulsory Oriental Pearl Tower and its surrounding skyscrapers including the Jin Mao in the middle
There is the Jin Mao Tower standing its ground proudly at 88 storeys and 340.1ms, designed to resemble a looming stack of banknotes; the renowned Oriental Pearl which appears on every single panorama postcard of Shanghai and soon in MI3 (possibly playing the transmitter for Tom Cruise to communicate with the aliens who are allegedly the source of human suffering); the cool Bank of China Tower that resembles a firing cannon, among other things; and so many other visual delights that draw the talent and imagination of the world's greatest architects together in one brilliant symphony of economic prosperity. The nightlife that takes place beneath these looming giants hustles and bustles with elusive excitement, tempting the most conservative of travelers with its Siren's call. Hengshan Road, famous for its high-class nightclubs and bars, becomes a palpitating artery flowing with western and eastern pleasures after 9PM, their luxury putting to shame even the more extreme of capitalist excess.
Heng Shan Rd - If you can squeeze through, it's really a fun place.
The heart of Shanghai near the Bund, a whirlpool of olden day architecture and floating teahouses
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All Ur Dim Sims r Belong 2 Us
April 20th 2006 04:34
Are you:
a) A travel buff whose sole purpose in life bears resemblance to that of a migratory bird
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a) A travel buff whose sole purpose in life bears resemblance to that of a migratory bird
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