Day 6: Shangrila in Shanghai

Oriental Pearl TV Tower - View from the Observatory at Jin Mau tower
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This morning we leave Xi’an to go further south in China. Our next destination is Shanghai. We arrive in Shanghai by 11 am where we meet our tour guide Jenny. Jenny informs us that the airport is not too far from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (equivalent of Toronto’s CN Tower) and that it would make more sense for us to see that before we check in at our hotel.

During our drive to the tower, Jenny gives us a quick run down on Shanghai’s history. Shanghai has always been a very strategic city for China. Surrounded on all sides by water, Shanghai was an important port for trade within China (via the Yangtze river) and with other countries (via the Pacific Ocean). The Chinese emperors granted various concessions to foreign countries to establish their own areas as residences for their nationals while they traded with the country. Even today, these areas are known as the “French Concession”, the “English Concession” and so on although now it’s just nomenclature with little consequence. Having a concession meant that that Chinese law would not apply to that concession and the law of that particular country would apply there instead.

Much of Shanghai’s newer construction is less than three decades years old. Indeed, it’s as if Shanghai has had a complete face lift – a radical makeover – in the last 15 years.

View from our hotel room
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Soon after the people’s revolution, all the concessions were ended and China ceased its trading (or at least severely restricted it) with most of the western world. It was only as recently as 1972 when President Nixon visited China and signed a trading agreement which officially opened Shanghai for trading with the USA.

Much of Shanghai’s newer construction is therefore less than three decades years old. Indeed, according to Jenny, it’s as if Shanghai has had a complete face lift – a radical makeover – in the last 15 years. Until then, Shanghai had a developed west side of the city (west of the river) and the east side was just farm lands. Now, the city’s international airport, the Pearl TV tower, the Jin Mau building (Shanghai’s tallest skyscraper) and some hundreds of new condominiums and office buildings are located into the city’s east side. Even the city’s financial district which was once along the “Bund” – Shanghai’s marine drive or oceanfront, has now been relocated to the east end. The historic and palatial colonial buildings along the Bund and now home to various top star hotels and fashion houses.

More of Nanjing Street
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On an impulse, I asked Jenny if it would be possible to skip the TV tower altogether and instead maybe go up the Jin Mau building from where we could see the TV tower and, hopefully, have fewer crowds to deal with. To my delight she endorsed the idea and so we went up Jin Mau building (no line ups!) and spent some time on its observation deck viewing Shanghai’s new and still evolving landscape.

Shortly after that we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Shanghai’s historical district. What a change! Instead of steel, glass and concrete from two decades ago, we were now surrounded by architecture that was a few hundred years old. Of course, when you looked closer you saw that these historic masterpieces now served Kentucky fried chicken or café latte! Oh well, that’s the price for development – it forces conformity and brings the familiar brand to the masses albeit in historic architecture.

Nanjing Street
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After a quick lunch, we took a tour of Shanghai’s famous Yu garden which has all the elements that comprise a perfect garden in China – flowing water, rockery, greenery and ornate pavilions. This entire garden was built by some rich merchant in Shanghai hundreds of years ago, as a gift to his father. Ofcourse, as these stories usually go, he was soon bankrupt and so ended up selling/leasing small chunks of the garden’s estate to other families.

Missy was too busy feeding fish in the garden’s many ponds to pay much attention to the history of the garden but she did say it was a bit “over the top” for someone build such a big garden as a gift for their parents. I guess I won’t be holding my breath for any such gestures from her ;)