| My new life, so far... |
FROM SHANGHAI, CHINA
Shanghai: A Vertical City
SHANGHAI, Oct 18 - Shanghai is an amazing metropolis, bigger than Beijing, yet more congested as its 17 million people live in a smaller area than the Chinese capital. When you're finished viewing some of the pictures I took, you may conclude as I did, that it is truly a vertical city...
Let's start with my hotel, for example...
...also seen here from the ground level.
And here are some views of the city now from my room on the 45th floor...
First the dawn... at about 5:30AM today...
...and then the same views around noon. As you can see, the visibility is somewhat better, but there is still a lot of haze in the air.
This is the view from an office building on the west side of the river...
...as are all these, too.
But the most attractive part of the city, I was told, is Pudong, a largely new area on the east side of the river. Take a look...
On the west bank, from which I took these pictures, there are a lot of European/colonial-style buildings that probably date to the end of the 19th century. Right across on the east bank, is Pudong, the new city...
... the east side of the river - Pudong, with its postcard views.
And now, I will freely mix the old and the new, as I walk along the wide promenade on the west bank...
And now, here is "an artistic view" of downtown Shanghai, as depicted in this sunset photo at the Shanghai airport...
Xiatiangdi District
But to me, the most charming part of the city was a small area on the west side where old homes have been restored and turned into a fashionable pedestrian mall. No skyscrapers there, just cute little stores and restaurants...
And yes, they included a Starbucks at which my Chinese friend Vincent and I stopped for a drink.
This is apparently the building in which the first meeting of the Chinese communist party took place. Naturally, that's a museum now.
Right across the street from it, is this lovely man-made lake...
...that's surrounded both by high-priced condos and office buildings.
The Pudong Airport
SHANGHAI, Oct 19 - Shanghai has two airports. We arrived from Beijing at the one on the west side of the river, and left from a new one much farther away in Pudong on the east side. Pudong is probably the largest airport in the world I have ever seen, in terms of building sizes and the land expanse it occupies.
The airport terminals you're seeing here under the wing of this Boeing 767 is only a small portion of the buildings that make up the Pudong airport.
And then it was time to say goodbye to Shanghai, and fly on two hours south to Shenzhen, appropriately on Shanghai Air.
And that's all she wrote from Shanghai...
