Tag Archives: China

Asia, China

The Plum Rain of Shanghai

Seeing today’s weather I was on the brink of just staying at the hotel. Luckily a shopping center with Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and a lot of restaurants is attached 😉 But then I thought…maybe rain is a chance for some great shots and set out to the Bund to catch some tourists. It worked out. And pretty quickly. The Plum Rain is not heavy, but so fine that it blows everywhere. An umbrella is fairly useless. There is just 6 minutes between the first and the last photos shown here. Add 10 minutes on either side to get from a subway to the Bund and back and you have a good estimate of my time spent outside today 😉 Continue reading The Plum Rain of Shanghai →

Asia, China

Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined

Today, eventually, was my first day at the Expo. My plan was to start in the late morning on the PuXi side, which supposingly was less crowded, and move over to the PuDong side only in the late afternoon, hoping that in the evening pavillion queues get shorter. Basically, I followed the area letters in reverse order, starting with E and planning to move all the way to A. The pavillions with the longest queues are all in A – Asia, which I would reach in the evening only. Than plan was good and I would recommend it again. I only spent a bit too much time in E and D, the PuXi side. Next time I switch over earlier. Continue reading Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined →

Asia, China

Along the Shopping Routes

While I’ve never been much into shopping I have so much time that I can afford also checking out changes along the major tourist shopping routes, NanJing Lu and HuaiHai Lu. Only on my way back I learned from the news monitors on the metro that today there were “only” some 380.000 visitors to the Expo. So it would have been a good day for visiting the Expo, despite (or because?) it being a holiday. Now it’s too late…I will go tomorrow morning. Continue reading Along the Shopping Routes →

Asia, China

Pudong Revisited

Wanted to see what it now looks like where I had lived some years ago. So I headed for Pudong, exiting the Metro at LuJiaZui, i.e. in the shadow of the tallest towers and all the fininancial high rises. Difficult to say if there are more of them now than back in 2007 😉 But the still very educating collection of yearly fish-eye photos from the top of Oriental Pearl Tower, which are arranged and displayed under the sail-like tent in the LuJiaZui Park told me: There are! But in fact…I wasn’t so much interested in them in detail. I walked around to check out the details. Continue reading Pudong Revisited →

Asia, China

Shanghai cleaned up

Shanghai…finally…I’m back again in this city I’ve lived in for 2,5 years. I’ve longed to see Shanghai again. And now that I’m back I have the odd feeling of not having been away too long. Maybe that’s due to wrong expectations: Friends said Shanghai has changed dramatically. So I had expected not to recognize much any longer. But in my eyes it’s not that bad: While there definitely is a lot of changes these changes are “under the hood” (actually mostly underground ;)). True…there are certainly some new buildings, but I don’t see them as a radical change: There had been a lot of high rises. And now there are a few more. Continue reading Shanghai cleaned up →

Asia, China

Shanghai (III) Technology Museum / Ocean Aquarium

Science & Technology Musem

That’s a huge game hall. I had not expected to learn many new things as I believe I am staying fairly much up-to-date on popular science. I just wanted to see how they present it. In the majority of the cases of the permanent exhibition you can’t really say it would be a ‘presentation’. The makers of this museum have taken a very playful approach, which by itself is nothing bad. In my eyes, though, the plays and games offered to experience a science or technology concept will not transport much knowledge about the concept as such. My best examples were right next to each other in the computer technology section: Pattern Matching and Olfactory Recognition (identify objects by smelling). Continue reading Shanghai (III) Technology Museum / Ocean Aquarium →

Asia, China

Shanghai (II) Gaudi / Urban Planning

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Yesterday’s visit to Paulaner Bräuhaus together with a friend proved to be necessary: I had lost a bit good German habits, like speaking German fluently, or cheering before starting to drink a beer instead of just taking it in by myself right away when served. The Chesse-Krainer weren’t so authentic, though. Hm…as far as I remember, maybe I’m wrong on my memory, too. Continue reading Shanghai (II) Gaudi / Urban Planning →

Asia, China

Shanghai (I) Closing the Loop

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The loop is closed: I am back in Shanghai, sitting in a Starbucks Café and drinking one Cappucchino after the other. It is a good feeling…not because the Cappucchino is good (it is OK, but can by no means compete with a real Vietnamese coffee), but because it is so clean and relaxing an atmosphere: Just sitting without being bothered by any hawkers at all. Especially after fleeing Ho Chi Minh City. In fact, this 20-million-people city of Shanghai gave me an odd feeling of emptyness: Just walk on the clean and broad pavement in the direction wanted. Cross the streets with a surprising sense of safety at traffic lights. An odd statement after all my complaining about the mad Chinese traffic between the lines of many earlier articles. Forget it, in comparison China is a kindergarten’s traffic education site. It is a good feeling of safe, clean, straight-forward, and fast transportation when leaving Shanghai Pudong Int’l Airport with the first MagLev of the day at 300km/h (in early morning and late evening the trains run with reduced speed for noise reduction), switch to a surprisingly empty subway, which brings you into the heart of the city in a time you probably just managed to leave a Vietnamese Int’l airport. If, that is, your immigration runs as smooth as in China. These two contries are still worlds apart. Continue reading Shanghai (I) Closing the Loop →