Shanghai: The first few days

I left from Seoul to Shanghai a few days before I was scheduled to meet with the girls and the tour group. I stayed at a hostel right downtown near People's Square, about ten minutes from the Bund (Shanghai riverfront). The hostel was nice, but just like a lot of China, there was a lack of heating. It was at about freezing outside and the hostel was about five degrees warmer.

At the hostel I met Patty and John, two fellow travelers. Patty is from Ireland and came to Asia to meet her brother, who is working in Hong Kong. She is on her way from Hong Kong to Beijing where she will fly back to Dublin. John is a retired firefighter from France. He loves to travel, but his wife doesn't. Their solution is that John travels every winter for about a month on his own. He also doesn't speak English so I'm not sure how he can venture on his own, but he does just fine. We decided one day to go downtown across the river to see the JinMao tower. The JinMao tower is the second tallest tower in Shanghai and one of the tallest in Asia. We went to the top and saw the city view (of course the view wasn't too great because of the heavy smog that hangs over the city). It was incredible to see so many skyscrapers, Shanghai is very modern.

I also had a day to wander the Bund and to see the large shopping street, Nanjing St. Shanghai wasn't what I expected. I didn't expect it to be so similar to the larger US cities like New York or Chicago. I suppose it appeared that way because it has a lot of French/Western influence. A lot of foreign companies also work here in Shanghai, so that could also be a reason for its Western appearance. It was hard for me to find Chinese brands in Shanghai, there were so many American brands I thought I was back in West county or something. Shanghai is definitely the China of tomorrow. As China grows economically, I think we will see many of the other cities transition to appear more like Shanghai.