Shanghai is a haven for shoppers. It's the financial centre of the World's most populated country and it looks like everyone of its 20 million residents (25 million during the day, and growing) love to shop. Every other building is a gigantic shopping centre at least 9 stories high. They all follow the same layout: the basement will be restaurants and food stalls, the ground floor (or here, confusingly, the first floor) will be cosmetics, the second and third floor will be woman's clothing, the fourth floor men's clothing, the fifth floor sports clothing, the sixth floor accessories, the seventh floor electronics, and the eighth floor a cinema. Having been in this city for 4 days I've been in no fewer than six of these huge shopping centres, all catering to different levels of the new Chinese Middle Class. Advertising is everywhere, as are all the big multinational companies: Starbucks, McDonald's, etc. It makes you wonder how much this place must have changed in the last 20 years or so.
I've been taken around the place by Da and Lin, his girlfriend from Shenzhen who's been staying with him since the evening before I arrived. It's very fortunate that I've had someone who knows his way around and who can speak Chinese, as hardly any of the locals speak any English. In fact, it would seem they don't need to as in my first 24 hours here I only saw one other Westerner. But maybe that's because we weren't in the touristy part of town then.
On Thursday we took the underground to Yuyuan Garden. Not only is the underground very cheap, it's also maticulously on time, arriving to the second that it predicts (there's a second countdown above the platform). Yuyuan Garden, contrary to what you might expect from the name, isn't really a garden at all but rather lots of small streets in the centre of the Old Town where all the tourists go. The buildings are quite impressive and there's a little river with lots of koi carp to one side. It must have been a lovely and quiet place once. Not any more, though, as the buildings have all been transformed into souvenier shops selling anything and everything to do with China: stamps, fans, bamboo flutes, chop sticks, etc. Sorry, but one thing nobody seems to sell is postcards, so you'll have to wait until I go somewhere else to get one. However, they're certainly not short of watches to sell: literally every few steps I took in Yuyuan Garden somebody would come up to me shouting "Watch?! You want watch?!" Always, somebody with "Watch?! You want watch?!" You might get the occasional "Watch? Or Bag?" And if they were really desperate they would come right up to your face shouting "Watchwatchwatchwatchwatch!" Of course, I was already wearing a perfectly good watch which they could easily see. But that didn't seem to matter.
Later that day the three of us walked along the promenade on this side of the Huangpu River, the main river that runs through Shanghai and where I'll get the ferry from on Tuesday. The sun had already set but it was still very hot. On the other side are more high-rise buildings: banks, offices and the famous Oriental Pearl TV Tower. "Chinese people don't really think about environmental problems, they just waste all the energy. Maybe they'll change in about 30 years" said Da as we looked across the river, the countless lights from the buildings brightening up the haze - a mixture of high humidity and pollutuion - that engulfs the entire city.
I've been taken around the place by Da and Lin, his girlfriend from Shenzhen who's been staying with him since the evening before I arrived. It's very fortunate that I've had someone who knows his way around and who can speak Chinese, as hardly any of the locals speak any English. In fact, it would seem they don't need to as in my first 24 hours here I only saw one other Westerner. But maybe that's because we weren't in the touristy part of town then.
On Thursday we took the underground to Yuyuan Garden. Not only is the underground very cheap, it's also maticulously on time, arriving to the second that it predicts (there's a second countdown above the platform). Yuyuan Garden, contrary to what you might expect from the name, isn't really a garden at all but rather lots of small streets in the centre of the Old Town where all the tourists go. The buildings are quite impressive and there's a little river with lots of koi carp to one side. It must have been a lovely and quiet place once. Not any more, though, as the buildings have all been transformed into souvenier shops selling anything and everything to do with China: stamps, fans, bamboo flutes, chop sticks, etc. Sorry, but one thing nobody seems to sell is postcards, so you'll have to wait until I go somewhere else to get one. However, they're certainly not short of watches to sell: literally every few steps I took in Yuyuan Garden somebody would come up to me shouting "Watch?! You want watch?!" Always, somebody with "Watch?! You want watch?!" You might get the occasional "Watch? Or Bag?" And if they were really desperate they would come right up to your face shouting "Watchwatchwatchwatchwatch!" Of course, I was already wearing a perfectly good watch which they could easily see. But that didn't seem to matter.
Later that day the three of us walked along the promenade on this side of the Huangpu River, the main river that runs through Shanghai and where I'll get the ferry from on Tuesday. The sun had already set but it was still very hot. On the other side are more high-rise buildings: banks, offices and the famous Oriental Pearl TV Tower. "Chinese people don't really think about environmental problems, they just waste all the energy. Maybe they'll change in about 30 years" said Da as we looked across the river, the countless lights from the buildings brightening up the haze - a mixture of high humidity and pollutuion - that engulfs the entire city.
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