8 May 2018
The old side from the new side became more of the new side
The ever changing architecture of Pudong
I went over to the new side of Shanghai, known as Pudong, to take photos of the old side of Shanghai, known as Puxi, more commonly known as 'the bund', which is the name of the waterfront area.
Instead I took a lot more photos of the new side and its modern buildings, with my wide angle zoomless camera they made for much better photos.
Over on this side of Shanghai is lots of white businessmen, lots of very expensive malls, lots of very very expensive viewing decks on the tops of tall buildings. To give you an idea, the cost to go up the worlds second tallest building, over $50 AUD. So I would not be doing that. No one else was either, despite the AMAZINGLY CLEAR BLUE SKY, no one was lined up to go up at dusk.
The inside of that building is a bit weird, the bendy outside is just a skin, the core (habitable part) is really quite narrow. Seems like a huge waste of expensive real estate. I dont know if its full or not because you cant go inside, to go to the viewing deck you have to go 2 levels underground.
Everything I wrote above is poorly worded and confusing, I dont care.
I did splurge on an expensive dinner, I paid just over $10! Shocking I know. It was way too much food as you will see. I only ate about half of it but the people next to me ordered about 5 times as much food between 2 people and ate one mouthful from each of the 10 things they ordered and left.
On the way back I watched a guys phone over his shoulder on the subway, and he was watching an amazing amateur video of the police shutting down what I guess was an illegal food night market in the street. They just smashed absolutely everything, tables, chairs, plates, pushing over the food carts, flinging saucepans like frisbees. All while a combination of terrified and amused diners, passers by and food stall owners ran away filming. It looked like great fun, ruining peoples illegal businesses to improve social harmony through chaotic state sanctioned violence.
Near my hotel there are a few different specialist goods streets. Musical instruments, books, trophies, curtains and stationery. Here we have a cat who owns a fancy stationery shop. He greets everyone who comes inside, then flops about on the tiles.
I was so amazed at the blue sky I thought I had better snap a photo as I boarded the subway to head to the other side, just in case it had disappeared by the time I came back above ground.
Now we start the series of boring photos of modern buildings. This one is not really that modern, but I have not seen it with such clear skies before.
The walkway across there, I am also standing on it, it is a giant circle for viewing big buildings, and the central garden and passing traffic.
The worlds second tallest building, now called the drain pipe, flanked by smaller neighbours in the foreground.
I have had the Chinese business news tv on, and found the stock market report confusing. China thinks red is good, green is bad. The exact opposite of how its reported in the white person countries. Red is the most harmonious of colors.
Here we have all 3 together, the one on the right is substantially taller, despite appearances in this photo.
It is easy to ignore all the other buildings, I guess most people would ignore all buildings because building photos are boring. I liked them because of the nice light and clear skies. I am very easily amused.
LAST ONE (in the daylight anyway).
Here is my extensive and expensive dinner. Hot and sour noodle soup and some very delicious wontons. I think my dinner was vegetarian. Often it is hard to tell.
Here is my attempt at the bund from the far side. It wasnt really working for me.
Instead of photos of the bund, have some more tall building photos!
I then hijacked this helicopter and flew through the keyhole on the keyhole buildings. Fun times.