Jian Ke

If it moves - eat it!

by MrPat

Immediately behind the fakes market on Hui Hui Lu there is a little food market where I took the picture. Before my trip to Shanghai I had not considered several of the animals for sale as food. In fact I made an elementary error when visiting the great uncle of a friend. As we walked througha small courtyard I noticed a plastic basin contained three turtles. I thought - "How charming. Some child's pets." Shortly afterwards I was treated to the sight of one of the turtles, along with a number of wriggling frogs, being brought through the house and into the kitchen. I have to say that I had several portions of the frogs legs!

Taxis are the way to go - remember Fa Piao!

by truesally

The cabs in Shanghai are a great deal, and by far the easiest way to navigate around this vast city. There are cab stops all over the place, but if you aren't near one it's pretty easy to flag one down. In certain areas there is huge competition among drivers - they will ask multiple times if you need a ride.

The best way to work taxi rides is to ask the hotel concierge to write your destinations down for you (in Chinese & English, so you remember what they say!),and carry hotel business cards for your return. A lot of places actually have a special card with the hotel name on it along with popular places to visit. We told the driver where we wanted to go first (because that's polite), then handed the card if he seemed confused or wanted more information.

It's a good idea to ask the fare before getting comfortable, and mention you'll need a receipt (Fa Piao). Apparently drivers are more inclined to charge a reasonable rate and behave when you request a receipt because that makes it easier to call the cab company & complain if you have a problem. (We had no issues, other than one driver who seemed to not know how to get us back to the Westin, one of the biggest hotels along the river, until I mentioned he should turn at a certain street...).

The average trip was a few dollars US, and they don't expect tips. Our ride to the airport, which was a good 45 minutes away, cost $27US - a screamin' deal for us considering our local cabs charge $45 to go the 15 miles from east Vancouver to downtown Portland.

Be prepared for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride most of the time, however. U-turns abound, at high speeds, there is much honking & passing, and little attention paid to lanes, crosswalks, and stoplights. But we didn't see a single accident and very few people actually seemed angry with one another.

Xiao Nan Guo

by vigi

Xiao Nan Guo meaning "Little Southern Country" in Chinese. Following a tip from a retired Hong Kong food critic, I visited this renowned Shanghai restaurant. They have 7 brances of restaurants in town, while the one located inside a hotel in Huanghe Lustill considered best best, both in food quality and amosphere.

Oriental Pearl Tower

by Willettsworld

This rather vulgar 468m (1,535ft) tall TV tower has become the symbol of Pudong and, probably, the most photographed building in Shanghai. Construction began in 1991 and the tower was completed in 1995 making it the tallest completed tower in Asia, and the third tallest tower in the world after the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada and the Ostankino Tower in Moscow, Russia.

The tower features 11 spheres, big and small. The two biggest spheres, along the length of the tower, have diameters of 50 m (164 ft) for the lower and 45 m (148 ft) for the upper. They are linked by three columns, each 9 m (30 ft) in diameter. The highest sphere is 14 m (46 ft) in diameter. The tower has fifteen observatory levels. The highest (known as the Space Module) is at 350 m (1148 ft). The lower levels are at 263 m (863 ft) (Sightseeing Floor) and at 90 m (295 ft) (Space City). There is a revolving restaurant at the 267 m (876 ft) level, a 20-room hotel called the Space Hotel, restaurants, exhibition facilities, the Shanghai History Exhibition and a shopping mall. Be aware that it isn't cheap to go anywhere inside:

Admission: Space Module - RMB150, The Upper Sphere & Shanghai History Exhibition - RMB135, the Upper Sphere (on its own) - RMB100 and Shanghai History Exhibition (on its own) - RMB35.

Shanghai

by seagoingJLW

"Dragon Head of East China"

Shanghai is located in central eastern China on the East China Sea. Within the Shanghai municipality lies the island of Chongming which is part of the Yangtze River Delta and is China's second largest island. Shanghai is divided into two areas: Pudong (east of the Huangpu River) and Puxi (west of the Huangpu River.) It has a status equivalent to a province. It is the largest city, the largest port, and the largest industrial base in China.

Shanghai has an area of 2,418 square miles (6200 sq km) and a population of 15 million of which 8 million live in the city proper. There is also a huge floating population (about 2 million) of itinerant workers. The main language is putangua (Mandarin) Shanghaihua. Most of the people are Han Chinese.

Shanghai, called Hu or Shen in Chinese, is the gateway to the Changjiang River Valley. The climate is delightful with four distinct seasons and an average temperature of 15.7 ° C.

History

Prior to the first Opium War, Shanghai was a small fishing village. Then the British opened their first concession in 1842 and the French did so in 1847. Pretty soon an International Settlement was established. By the time the Japanese arrived in 1895, the city was parcelled into autonomous settlements immune from Chinese law. It was China's first Special Economic Zone.

The 1930's saw the arrival of houses of commerce and financial institutions. Shanghai, by then, had the tallest buildings in Asia and more automobiles than in all the rest of China. A remnant of that time is the Bund.

There were countless opium dens, gambling joints, and brothels. Guarding the city were American, French, and Italian marines, British Tommies and Japanese bluejackets.

The Communists finally put a stop to it in 1947. They got rid of the slums. They rehabilitated the opium addicts. They put a stop to child and slave labor.

The 1990's saw a rebuilding of the city. It is the financial center of China.

The Bund

The Bund is an Anglo-Indian term. It means muddy embankment. The Bund is symbolic of the foreign element in Shanghai.

The Europeans treated it as Shanghai's Wall Street. It was a place of trading, but it was also the playground of Western sophisticates. The buildings on the Bund are an assortment of neo-classical 1930's downtown New York styles. The domed building is the old Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. It was completed in 1921 and was the home of the Shanghai People's Municipal Government for many years.