I'm going to be travelling with a group tour here in China, but I got here a couple of days in advance so I had a chance to do a bit of exploring on my own first.
Although Beijing is the capital city, Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China (PRC - a.k.a "China" for the purposes of my blogging), with a population of around 24 million. It is a very global city, with influence in commerce, culture, finance, media, fashion, technology, and transport. It is a major financial centre and the busiest container port in the world. The city is also nicknamed: "Paris of the East".
Not having any idea where I was in the city, or what I wanted to do, I just set out on a walk to see what I could see. I'm not totally sure what I expected of Shanghai, but I found a city that although large, was very organized, clean, and exceptionally cosmopolitan! The hotel I was staying at was on a very major roadway, and although it was a bit of a concrete jungle I loved the street decorations!
I was also very surprised at the number of pieces of public art I saw while I was walking - and all of it within just a few blocks of my hotel.
This one is called "Waiting for the Bus"
Shanghai's parks offer some reprieve from the urban jungle, and again I was surprised at just how many parks and open public spaces there were. Jing'an Park was the closest one to where I was staying and not only was it beautifully decorated it was, not surprisingly, a great place to sit and people watch!
As you can imagine, traffic in a city this size is quite an "interesting" experience, but again I was also surprised at some of things that are being done in the city to try and address the difficulties. In the city centre, there are several elevated expressways to lessen traffic pressure on surface streets, and in many places there are bicycle lanes separate from car traffic which can only be used by bicycles and scooters. There is also a well developed system of elevated pedestrian walkways so that getting across some of the intersections is really quite easy.
The elevated pedestrian walkways and crossovers
The separated lanes for bikes and scooters
Jing'an Temple (which means: "Temple of Peace and Tranquility") is a Buddhist temple and monastery. The temple was first built in 247 AD in the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China and then relocated to its current site in 1216 during the Song Dynasty. And now here it sits, in 2013, in this same location, surrounded by very modern skyscrapers and retail stores.
There are three main halls within this temple, each with its own courtyard. In The Jade Buddha Hall there is the statue of the Sakyamuni (the first Buddha of Buddhism) which is made out of Myanmar white jade. It stands 3.87 metres high, weighs 11 tons, and is the largest sitting jade Buddha statue in the country.
In the centre of the Guanyin Hall is a statue of the Guanyin Bodhisattva (the Buddhist Godess of Mercy) which is made out of thousand year old camphor wood. Standing on a lotus-shaped base, it is 6.2 metres tall and weighs 5 tons.
And in the Mahavira Hall (or The Precious Hall of the Great Hero) the Jing'an Silver Buddha is a statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha sitting on the lotus base in meditation. It was made from 15 tons of silver and is 8.8 metres high.
Shikumen ("Stone Warehouse Gate") is a traditional Shanghainese architectural style, combining Western and Chinese elements that first appeared in the 1860s. At the height of their popularity, shikumen-style buildings comprised 60% of the total housing in the city, but today the proportion is much lower as most Shanghainese live in large apartment buildings. Shikumens are two- or three-storey structures resembling terrace houses or townhouses, distinguished by high brick walls enclosing a narrow front yard. The name "stone gate" references these strong gateways. Each residence abuts another and all are arranged in straight side alleys called longtang. The entrance to each alley is usually surmounted by a stylistic arch. Although the majority of these traditional houses have been demolished and replaced by huge high-rise apartment blocks, I was luckily in a part of the city where a few still remain.
The city also has some beautiful examples of Soviet neoclassical architecture. These buildings were mostly erected during the period from the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 until the Sino-Soviet Split in the late 1960s. During this decade, large numbers of Soviet experts, including architects, poured into China to aid the country in the construction of a communist state. One of the best examples of Soviet neoclassical architecture in Shanghai is what is today the Shanghai International Exhibition Centre.
In recent years, a large number of architecturally distinctive and even eccentric buildings have sprung up throughout Shanghai. I'll show you more in an upcoming post when I go to an area of the city known as the Pudong district, but when I was out walking today I came across a few.
Shimao International Plaza (on the left)
The building with the clock tower is the Shanghai Art Museum
The Tomorrow Square
The Radisson Hotel
Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre
The Shanghai Grand Theatre (with Tomorrow Square in the background)
The Shanghai Museum
Nanjing Road is the main shopping street of Shanghai, and it is one of the world's busiest shopping streets. Nanjing Road comprises two sections, Nanjing Road East and Nanjing Road West, and although I wandered all of its 5-6 kms the part I loved the best was the east section which is nearly all a pedestrian mall, a section that is nearly 1.5 kms long! Located along here are most of Shanghai's oldest and largest department stores, as well as a variety of domestic retail outlets, and some traditional eateries with a long history.
And branching off from Nanjing Road you can see what are more "typical" shopping streets in downtown Shanghai.
Police presence was very evident
And branching off from Nanjing Road you can see what are more "typical" shopping streets in downtown Shanghai.
That pretty much brings to an end the sightseeing and walking around I did on my own. At the end of the day I met up with the group I'm going to be travelling with and we all went out for dinner together. A nice way to get to know everyone, and for me a nice way to end a day that involved lots of walking!
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