Wednesday, March 23, 2016

2016 Asia Mega Tour – Exploring Shanghai and on to Beijing


We have a full day in Shanghai before we catch an evening flight to Beijing. We’re seeing two of the most historical districts, the French Concession and the Bund. Shanghai is the largest city in China and in the world with a population of 24 million. It is also the busiest container shipping port in the world. We do a lot of walking again in these two areas. We visit the Fuxing Park where we see how retired people gather to sing and perform simply for the pleasure of doing it. We go to the Bund which as a collection of early 20th century buildings from the time when this area was controlled by Europeans and take a river cruise. We have lunch at a whole in the wall place Pooh researched that serves Western China style hand pulled noodles. It is quite a site to see this guy taking dough, dividing it and stretching it many times over until he gets thin noodles.

Finally we go back to the hotel, pick up our things and go to the airport (a different one than the one we arrived). We have a craving for KFC, which is all over China but there is none in the airport so we eat a Hong Kong style meal. Then we go through security where of course there is a KFC.  We fly on China Eastern Airlines with a crowd of people that has one reminded of the stereotype of the third class railcar with people bringing the chickens and goats. It was funny to watch these folks who clearly don’t fly a lot working with the very young and very first worldly employees of the airline. It was past midnight when we got to the hotel in Beijing.

3 comments:

Renee Michelle Goertzen said...

I love the idea of people singing for the fun of it. I love that we can all listen to lots more music in the modern age, but I also regret that we all engage in music as a lot less, probably as a result of being surrounded by music that is much, much better that we can produce ourselves. But consuming music (or dance) is very different than participating in it.

Also, no food pictures? What's going on?

JRR said...

great stamina!!!

alexis said...

I totally recall flying in in China and having those experiences!