Tourists

(posted by Alan)
click on the pictures to see them full size

First of all, thanks everyone for all the great feedback on the website and blog. It's real encouraging and we appreciate the support. We love reading the comments you guys leave too, so keep them coming.

Being that this is far from our first time in Shanghai, we've done most of the tourist things already. Actually, in Shanghai there aren't too many touristy things to do. At least not compared to Beijing, which has tons of old, traditional tourist places to see like the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, etc. Shanghai is way more modern and has modern tourist things, but nothing quite as impressive as Beijing. It's funny how often we used to remark at how we live in New York, but never get around to doing alot of the really cool tourist things there are there. Alot of New Yorkers have never actually been to the Statue of Liberty, or the Top of the Rock, or even walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. I think Shanghai is similar to New York in that way. There are lots of cool things to do here, but you'd kind of have to be a tourist and have done the research to find out about it all. I'm not sure if we're still considered tourists, but we're still always up for interesting touristy things.

So in doing research and trying to find out more about the city, I learned that one of the suspension bridges that span the Huang Pu River is climbable. The Huang Pu River runs through the middle of Shanghai and splits it into two areas. There are only two climbable suspension bridges in the world, one in Sydney and the Lupu Bridge, which is here in Shanghai. I love junk like that, so two days later, we met up with our friend Faith and climbed the bridge.

The Lupu Bridge sits almost directly above the site of the 2010 World Expo. The Expo site will be on both sides of the River and from the renderings I've seen so far, is going to be pretty darn impressive to see. The Expo is pretty much a World's Fair and the goal of it is to take you on a world tour in one event. Every participating country will build a huge, interactive pavilion in order to show off their country and give visitors a unique experience. The Shanghai Expo is expected to generate the largest number of visitors in the history of the world's fairs in terms of gross numbers. It's taking place from next May to October. Below are some pictures of a few of the pavilion renderings, the construction of the Expo site as of now and us with the Expo Mascot, HaiBao, who is all over the city and probably will be until the end of the Expo.

Poland, Romania,Israel and of course, China. Click here to see more.



This week, we also have our first visitor in town. Although he didn't come to China primarily to see us, Henry Liao, you still count as our first visitor here in Shanghai. Sorry everyone else. The title of first visitor to come STAY with us at our place is still up for grabs though. Daisy and I are going to make a list of our top 10 people we actually think are going to come out to visit and in what order. Many of you have said you will, we'll find out if it actually comes true. If you want to know who's on our lists, we'll let you see when you come visit.

Anyway, we got a chance to show Henry around the city and experience the range of lifestyles out here. From the comfortable, Western, expat way of life to the local CHINA-Chinese way of life. We've had everything from decadent chocolate cake at Whisk and juicy burgers while watching the NBA Playoff's at Malone's, to a 75 cent bowl of noodles at a hole in the wall restaurant. I actually think he enjoyed the noodles more than anything. I don't blame him, my vote goes to hole-in-the-wall restaurants also. He's also been able to just chill at our apartment, run errands with us at the fruit stand and hang out with some of our friends, and also do tourist stuff like bargaining at the fake market and walking along the Bund. I know you think you were imposing on our time Henry, but we really mean it when we say it's so great to see faces from home and we really enjoyed hanging out and showing you around. That goes for any of you who come visit. Ask Henry, we'll take good care of you.

Pics from our night out by the Bund.