Teflon Travels

The Airbus 340-500 Ultra Long Range aircraft which brought us direct from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey. It was a journey in excess of 9000 miles (15000 km) and took about 18 hours 40 minutes.

Wing of the aircraft

The Executive Economy Class which we travelled in

Another wing pic set against the setting sun.

SQ 835 taking off, back to Singapore.

Outside the departure hall, looking down

The "tampon" theme of Shanghai Pu Dong Airport

More sights

Curise down River Thames? No. It's Shanghai, China!

Too early, so the lights are not fully switched on

The bund side

The weather was hazy, so we'll go straight to the cruises.

Cruising on the Huangpu River, visitors can gaze at the mighty skyscrapers, the Monument Tower to the People's Heroes, the famous Waibaidu Bridge and Huangpu Park on one bank, and the Orient Pearl TV Tower, International Convertion Center, Jin Mao Building and the newly rising Pudong New Area on the other. The Yangpu and Nanpu bridges span the river. From the river, visitors can also view the ruins of ancient cannon emplacements and fortifications at Wusong and the magnificent view of the Yangtze River as it empties into the sea.

Huang Pu River from the observation deck

We ascended to 263 m in 40 seconds

Queueing up to ascend the Oriental Pearl Tower

Photography on exterior of house - ok. Interior - not allowed.

Her house and garden were gorgeous. They were so elegantly simple.

She travelled in this car

This is the former residence of Soong Ching Ling. an honorary chairwoman of the People's Republic of China and the widow of Sun Yat-sen. She lived, worked, and studied here during the last years of her life.

Mme Soong's statue, in white marble.

Oh! Horrible horrible lunch at Xiao Shao Xing (opposite the Chenghuang Temple). It was so bad that the proprietor kept adding on the food, hoping to use quantity to compensate the awful lack of quality

Queen Elizabeth ate in the restaurant housed in the pavilion when she visited. Me? Oh, I used their toilet.

Traditional painting/kite painting art

Free dumpling making demonstration

Traditional paper cutting art

Kebabs

Soups (or more like desserts)

So pervasive!

Candied fruits

Watching a "live" movie - the guy changes the settings by tugging on the strings and provides the music and narration. It's like a one-man cartoon movie.

Chenghuang Temple Sights (Don't be mistaken - the place is a shopping mall. To enter the Chenghuang Temple, one has to pay!)

If you really want a comparison, Chenghuang Temple Shopping Street is like the Chinatown of China. Get the irony?

Chenghuang Temple Market
The most famous place in Shanghai to enjoy the true flavor of authentic Shanghai food is Chenghuang Temple Market, which serves a large variety of pure Shanghai food.

Different from the sweet taste of Cantonese and Hong Kong food and the spicy flavor of Sichuan and Chongqing food, Shanghai snack food is well-known for being light, fresh and tasty. Among them, the most popular are Tangbao (steamed dumplings filled with minced meat and gravy), Baiye (boiled thin sheets of bean curd) and Youmianjin (soft, fired fermented dough that?s hollow).

Have you ever had the chance to taste Chinese dumplings, one of the best-known traditional Chinese foods? If you haven?t, it?s a real shame?dumplings are essential parts of many Chinese festivals and are, on top of that, delicious! But one of the best is a unique kind of dumpling filled with gravy or soup stalk called tangbao. They?re small and delicately made with a thin layer of dough and abundant stuffing, tangbao taste best when filled with crab or shrimp, but different combinations are often equally as good. When you take a bite of the soft exterior shell, some gravy with pleasant smell will flow out. Certainly not short on taste, tangbao are nearly impossible to resist. Although the first one isn't free, they?re relatively inexpensive and have been noted for their addictive qualities.

Baiye is another kind of tempting snack which is made of several thin layers of bean curd. It looks very much like a bow-tie and is usually mixed with rib soup after being boiled. Salt and chopped green onions are later added to the mix to make it taste better.

Youmianjin are small fermented dough balls made from flour powder. Having been deep-fried, they are also blended with boiling rib soup. Then a lot of seasoning is added to enhance the snack?s flavor. When you are enjoying them, you?ll find they?re tasty but not too greasy.

Here is a question. Is it possible to enjoy North American style Thanksgiving food in Shanghai? The answer is a definite yes! Among all of Shanghai's delicious snack food, there is also one known as ?pumpkin pie?. However, the major difference from the traditional pumpkin pie lies in its size and ingredients. In essence, it?s a ?mini-pumpkin pie? and the crust is made from sticky rice and pumpkin. But what's the filling made of? Is it more pumpkin? Perhaps a special kind of Chinese gourd? To relieve the mounting suspense, it?s minced cashew, that?s both sweet and fragrant. So, it?s not exactly a pumpkin pie, but does manage to produce the same, warm feeling.

There are hundreds of kinds of snack foods in Shanghai. A complete introduction to them would take weeks?if not months?and perhaps offer a few extra pounds for the investment. It would be quite a feat of hedonism to enjoy them all at once! But if you want to try them, come and join our tour in snack kingdom to find out more about food!

The day is too young. Wait a while longer and the people throng the streets!

Street hawker (sight from our hotel room)

Shanghai on Christmas Day

Crowd, people, and more crowd, more people...

Nanjing Street is so crowded!

Nanjing Street (as it got later). This is the crowd on 24 Dec 05. Incredibly crowded.

Orient Pearl TV Tower
The Orient Pearl TV Tower is 468 meters high, the tallest in Asia and third tallest in the world. It faces the Bund across the Huangpu River. When viewed from the Bund, the tower and the Nanpu and Yangpu bridges create a vivid imagery known as "two dragons playing with a pearl." The sphere at the top has a diameter of 45 meters and is 263 meters above ground. The observation deck in the sphere offers a sweeping view of the city. The revolving restaurant is set at 267 meters above Pudong New Area. The dance ball, piano bar and 20 karaoke rooms, at 271 meters, are also opened to the public. The penthouse, which sits at 350 meters, has an observation deck, meeting room, and coffee shop. The tower integrates broadcasting technologies with sightseeing, catering, shopping, amusement, and accommodations. It has become the symbol of the city and a major tourist attraction in Shanghai.

The Oriental Pearl Tower and the Pearl Tower Hotel

The wonders of long exposure

"Heaven and Hell"

The lit tracks of the Bund Transit Train for tourists. The train runs under the Huang Pu River and it costs a lot to do this crossing!

"Entering the ocean"

More lighting effects in the tunnel

The bund is a hive of activity and crowded to high heavens!

The famous Peace Hotel, where Dr Sun Yat-sen and Song Qingling tied their nuptial knot

The Bund
The well-known Bund is a must for visitors to Shanghai. Fifty-two buildings lining the narrow shoreline of the Huangpu River offer a living exhibition of Gothic, Baroque,Roman,Classic Revival and Renaissance architectural styles, as well as combinations of Chinese and Western styles. They are also a condensation of the recent history of the city. The wide embankment offers ample room for strolling and is used by locals for morning exercises and evening gatherings. In the evening, colorful lights illuminate the area and create a shimmering image deserving of the name Pearl of the Orient.

Pedestrian Arcade - Nanjing Road
Nanjing Road East, honored as "China's No. l Street", has become an all-weather pedestrian arcade. Shops and restaurants provide products and services with their own characteristics, making it an ideal place that integrates shopping, restaurants, amusement and sightseeing.

Xiangyang Fake Goods Market. Our driver is at the bottom right of this pic. (He had a taste of my bargaining abilities when I managed to get him a RMB 420 jacket for RMB 120.)

Shanghai

Located at the center of the mainland's coastline, Shanghai has long been a major hub of communications, transportaion, and international exchange. The municipality covers an area of 6,341 square kilometers and has a population of more than 13.5 million. Shanghai is China's largest economic comprehensive industrial base, and a famous historical and cultural city.

The city consistently attracts investment and is seen as an ideal venue for business gatherings. It is also a must on any agenda during a tour of China. Shanghai has fostered a comprehensive transportation network that incorporates land, sea, and air travel, as well as a convenient urban transportation system. More than 300 airlines serve the city, proving direct flights to more than 20 countries and regions. The addition of the Shanghai Pudong International Airport, which went into operation in 1999, is expected to increase the annual passenger volume to some 20 million.

Special tourist trains running between Shanghai and the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, as well as tourist bus routes along newly-constructed expressways, offer great convenience for regional travel. Shanghai has more than 400 travel agenties to assist visitors, and the 127 star-rated hotels offer a total of 40, 000 guest rooms.

Visitors to Shanghai are not only dazzled by the modernmetropolis and gateway to a developing China, but are also able to immerse themselves in the unique Shanghai culture, a combination of Chinese and Western elements. Colorful festivals and cele-brations dot the yearly Shanghai activities calendar, such as the Shanghai Nanhui Peach Blossoms Festival, Shanghai International Tea Culture Festival and Shanghai China International Art Festival.

Shanghai has also introduced special tour packages aimed at the different interests of visitors, such as bicycling tours, hiking tours, gourmet tours, rehabilitation and health care tours, study tours, Japanese young women's tours, honey moon tours, and convention and exhibition tours.

Oddities in Shanghai

Sign to say you've arrived in Shanghai

Idyllic living in Xitang

The river of life! (Yucks!)

The narrowest street in Xitang - Stone-skin Path

More sights

Sights in Xitang

This was carved from the roots of a tree - Xitang Root Carving Museum

Xitang at night

Dinner spread at Xitang

These trotters are great tasting!

More night scenes

Xitang Water Country

The days before the rain comes are the best days to visit the ancient towns in South China's water regions. On a breezy day, one can shoulder a camera and ramble along an old street sipping a well-aged liquor. But however pleasing this may be, such ancient towns are becoming fewer and fewer, so we can feel lucky that Xitang still preserves its original look. Xitang is in Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province. As early as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (770-221B.C.), it was a place of strategic importance on the boundary between Wu and Yue States, and it was thus known as the Bottom of Wu and the Corner of Yue. During the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), it developed into a prosperous town, and during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911), it was known as an important town for commerce and handicrafts in South China. Today, Xitang is like an ancient piece of jade, glittering and translucent.

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The area has a flat terrain, and the nine rivers that run through the town divide it into eight parts. Xitang is known for its bridges, lanes, and ceilinged corridors. There are 104 bridges of varied structure, all from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, some looking like rainbows over the river, and others like long flutes. Standing on one of these bridges and watching the boats through a round opening, one feels drawn into deep meditation on the past. Many of the shops and houses in Xitang are built on the riversides. There are a total of 122 lanes, long and short, wide and narrow. The lanes are paved with stone planks, polished by the feet of pedestrians as well as hundreds of years of weathering. Together with the black-tiled houses along the roads, the polished stone planks bear witness to the town's long history.

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Because of the rainy climate, local residents have invented their own style of ceilinged corridor. Each family puts a ceiling over the stone-plank road in front of its own house, and the ceilings connect with one another to form corridors, the longest being 1,300 meters. Nowadays, the ceilinged corridors are the main places for outdoor activities and attract countless tourists. Along one side of the riverside corridors, benches provide a resting place for pedestrians. It is rarely seen in other places, but it reflects the ancient and strong local custom typical riverside villages along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

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Xitang is also attractive because of the easygoing lifestyle that local residents have followed for thousands of years. Unlike the towns of Zhouzhuang and Wuzhen, Xitang is not a bustling place (see China Pictorial November 2001 and February 2002). People in the town live ordinary, peaceful lives. The elderly play with their grandchildren on bridges and in lanes, and women wash vegetables and clothes in the rivers running beside their houses. The simple lifestyle and peaceful atmosphere may have died out in those now commercialized ancient towns, but they fill every lane in Xitang. For tourists from modern metropolises, Xitang is a place to experience a feeling of simplicity and leisure. An advisor from the UNESCO World Heritage Center spoke highly of Xitang after coming here. "Xitang is like the limpid and melodious music of a flute," he said. "People need to appreciate it with their heart."