The Bubble

The Kerry Center is where I will be working when in Shanghai. As I have wrote before it has a hotel with 32 floors, four restaurants in the hotel, largest gym in any hotel, separate residence condos, 60+ floor business tower, a mall and subway station all in the same city block.  The mall has a grocery store and 20+ restaurants.  Everything is very new, western and pricey. We have come to realize the Kerry parkside puts a bubble around us.  Once you venture to the Puxi district you are out of the bubble.  This is going to be quite the learning experience.  We met a Westerner that gave us his four rules of living in Shanghai:

1. When crossing a street the pecking order is bus, truck, car, motorcycle, moped, electric bike, rickshaw, bike and then pedestrian.  Pedestrians never have any rights.
2. If you would not do something in New York city do not do it in Shanghai
3. You eat with your mouth.  Chopsticks just get the food close, always feel for objects within your mouth and do not be embarrassed to spit anything foreign out.  (I have never had to spit anything out)
4. Have fun

All good rules to live by.  

Happy Valley Map Location

Today we drove to a local amusement park called Happy Valley.  Here is the route we took -

Map:

View Larger Map

This should show the route-
http://g.co/maps/tastb

The park has been open for two years but by looking at the facilities paint, concrete cracks it would seem to be 30 years old. They have a LOT of thrill rides

We think we recognized a lot of the rides. Bug out, Sheikra and the Universal coaster that goes through water.  The ride above with a bear in the center looked intense as that moved along a wavy track while spinning and tilting.  It was a great day until the bus would not start then, the park closed and they locked us in until a replacement bus arrived.  We then had to walk out and under the guard gates.  Nothing like being stranded in China.
More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/wagsplace/2011_12_04_Shanghai_HappyValley?authuser=0&feat=directlink


I then took a few people to the "fake market" always fun dealing with the hundreds of hawkers.


Gregg

Peking Duck and a view

We ended the night at the Hyatt on the Bund.  We had a Peking duck served to us and we ate it the traditional way.  Below the chef is slicing the cooked skin off the duck. We ate these strips with a little sugar on top which was wonderful.  The meat is laid in a wrap with cucumbers and another vegetable and topped with a thick, dark sauce. 

The view from the roof top of the Hyatt was unbelievable! Please click on the image for the larger view.

Shanghai was built in ten - fifteen years

If you remember my post from July 29th Shanghai is the world most populated city at 13 million people.  Instead of boroughs like New York it is comprised of 17 districts.  Here is the astonishing fact.  The Pudong New Area was rural farmland when my children were born. The central government granted economic reforms in 1990.  Construction started in the mid-nineties with the majority of the district built within the last 10 years. 

This is  a picture of the Pudong New Area in 1990 looking across the Huangpu river.

Here is Pudong in 1996

Here is a picture from 2010 of the same area

Here is my picture from hotel during Typhoon Muifa

Can you imagine New York being built in ten years?

Pudong picture credit to www.magicalurbanism.com