Day 11: Shanghai (上海)

A Dragon Apparent

Today was made for wandering and exploring; a blue sky day. The backdrop at breakfast… Shanghai calling…

Fuelled up, we both put our best foot forward…

Pudong being the relatively newly developed area (see yesterday’s blog) we did expect something modern. In amongst it all, we actually found it to be seriously mind-blowing. Struggling for adequate words: futuristic? Jetsonesque?

The Jetsons was a popular primetime cartoon show featuring the Jetson family living in a utopian future. People live in housing in the sky, work a three-day workweek, drive aerocars that look like flying saucers and have incredible conveniences that leave them with plenty of leisure time. George, his homemaker wife Jane, and their children, Judy and Elroy, also have a robotic maid named Rosie and a talking dog named Astro. Airing first on ABC in the 1960s, the series was resurrected in the 1980s.

The elevated walkways, akin to those we had previously come across in Hong Kong but distinctly more modern and extensive, made walking through the Pudong area a very pleasant experience. A few photos to give some idea…

Panoramic from the walkway by the 3 big ones

How to do roundabouts…

After crossing the river (ferry: 20p each!) we headed for East Nanjing Road.

Looking back towards Pudong from the ferry

East Nanjing Road, a 1.5km long, pedestrianised, crazy dude shopping area; with some wonderful shop fronts.

Now here’s a proper shop… all 9 floors of it…

Pride of place afforded to the gaffer…

President Xi Jinping

And while we are at it. So far (Beijing, Xi’an) we had only come across mini-marts. Well, we marked this one out for our packed lunch supplier come the next leg of our journey (a 9+ hour train journey to Guilin. Deep in the bowels of a posh shopping mall just over from our hotel…