Well, here they are - A selection of 'Photos of the day' from my trip to China.
Basically, I've chosen a photo form each day of my trip to show to y'all - it's not always the prettiest shot, or the most interesting one, but I've tried to include a mix of different styles and subjects - If was something in particular that you read about and wanted to see a picture of, leave a message or drop me an email and I'll see I've got.

Anyway, click here to go to see the slideshow - it's in chronological order, and you can scroll back and forth using the arrows at the top - additionally, if you click on any of the photos, I've included a short description of what you're looking at.

Well, that's just about it - thank y'all for following along with my adventures during my overseas, I had an amazing time and it was always good to know that you guys were reading along at home, so thanks.

Jono

Hey everyone - Sorry I didn't get a chance to get on the internet last night - I don't have the longest time on this computer here at the hostel, so I'll make a bit of a list of what I've done in the last couple of days.

Yesterday morning (I guess it's 2 days ago now), I got up, checked out of the hostel in Shanghai, and went out to do a bit of real antique/junk shop diving. None of this 'antique' street market stuff, I'm talking getting your hands a little dusty, pokey little shops, piles of old junk, and the good stuff all hidden in a corner behind a bunch of white porcelain Mao busts. So I headed out to a couple of places around town - a few were closed, what with it being the Lunar new year's eve, but I found a couple of nice spots. The rest of the day was spent travelling to various spots around the city, to various places I'd missed in the last week, and returning to a couple (no more fried dumplings though - they were closed :( )

My flight out of Pudong Airport in Shanghai left at 10:35, so got the light rail, then the metro train, then the MAGLEV! Which was very exciting - it's the fastest train in the entire world, and while it doesn't travel at top speed in the evenings (it only got to 300km/h :p), it still only took just over 8 minutes the travel the 30km from stop to stop (which by my reckoning, is an average speed of around 225km/h. After waiting a couple hours at the airport I hopped the plane and was on my way to HK.

And while on the plane, I saw a most incredible sight - So I was flying over China at midnight on the 17th of February - when the clocked ticked over into the Year of the Pig - and a traditional way of celebrating the new year is with fireworks - which can be bought at shops or streetside stalls - which means -everyone- sets of fireworks. And I was 30,000 feet in the air to see this happen - it was really spectacular to look out my window and see flashes of light reflecting off the clouds all the way to the horizon - I even saw some actually going off, which is quite cool from above rather than the usual point of view below the action.

After such a spectacular show, I arrived at HK airport at 1:15 in the morning - not wanting to into town in the middle of the night, I found some unused seats and bedded down - caught a few hours of sleep, explored the nearly deserted airport, then at 7AM, took the bus into Kowloon.

After dropping off my luggage at the Hostel, I walked the empty streets of Kowloon for a while (Lunar New Year's morning in HK, think Christmas morning at home), headed across to the island and came back to the hostel for a nap.

After a short, refreshing sleep, I headed out into the now largely business as usual city of HK, and made my way down the the New Year's parade route.... It wasn't until I got there that I realised how much I really don't like parades - I got there at 7 for an 8 O'clock start - and waited and hour and a half for the first float. standing in the second row (no barrier to lean on :p), it was another 15 minutes before the 2nd float came along (I think that there might've been a fire - all these fire trucks rushed past, but I couldn't see where they went), then they started coming pretty regularly - I stayed for most of the time, came back to Mong Kok to trawl the night markets, then came back and fell into bed.

Well, that was my 2 days - I'm just about to check out of the hostel, take a bit of time to go across to the island one last time, then head back to the airport and my plane home!

I promise a post with pictures sometime later this week.

'til then!

Jono

Hooray, I'm posting from inside a train station!
3 cheers for free internet terminals.

Well, I got to HK just fine after a day of flitting back and forth across Shanghai yesterday, managed to catch a cople of hours sleep in the terminal, then headed back into the big city.

Everythings very quiet right now, being the first day of the lunar new year, so I'm just taking a bit of time to wander before I can check into my hostel, probably have a bit of a nap, then head of to the new year parade!
With any luck, I'll also get some non-train related internet time to do a more comprehensive blog of the last couple days too.

'til then!

Jono

Friday, February 16th

Alright, today I had pencilled in a wander in Shanghai's Old Town, including the Yuyuan Gardens, and a couple of antique markets.

Setting off at around 10:30 this morning, I took the train to People's Square, then walked down to the Old Town. Now, my impression of this area were that it would be a kind of untouched look into the city's past, and while this is true in part (narrow streets of old-style houses, roadside vegetable markets etc), there's clearly change afoot in the Old Town. While the whole region has been set aside by the Shanghai municipal council as a heritage area, there's still various types of development kinda nibbling away at the edges - apartment blocks, new roads being built, houses being knocked down (as I was walking past, which was interesting, but a little bit sad - watching an old place without a front wall, people inside going at it with sledgehammers).

Yuyuan Gardens, my first stop, took a bit of finding - I found the traditional chinese palatial architecture (you know the type - white walls, black tiled roofs curved up at the edges etc) easily enough (it kinda dominates over the surrounding warren of streets and alleyways), but then had trouble finding my way in. I walked almost right the way around the base of the walls before eventually finding the main entrance to the Yuyuan Gardens.

And boy are they a stunner! originally laid out in the 14th century for a Ming Dynasty official (though damaged and refurbished a number of times since), these 2 hectares of traditional Chinese gardens are really quite astounding. The place is a bit of a tourist haven, and there were a few tour guides with coloured flags leading their groups around, but it's easy to find a bit of peace and quiet in a place like this. Full of ornamental lakes, Koi ponds, traditional pavilions (pavilia? :p) and rock gardens, it's everything you'd imagine from a Chinese garden. Unfortunately, the overcast sky and a bit of drizzle meant that what pictures I took didn't come out to well, but it really is an astonishingly beautiful place, and I spent well over an hour exploring the various nooks and crannies.

Once I was done in the gardens, I made my way out to the real tourist joint - in the area around the gardens, they've built a whole complex of modern buildings in the traditional Ming Dynasty style, and filled them to the brim with souvenir merchants, jewellery shops and food stores (there's even a McDonalds - and a Starbucks). But not all is lost in this land of expensive trinkets - I did have a very good lunch. Again with the dumplings, but this time smaller and steamed. My Lonely Planet guide recommended this place, but I hadn't particularly planned on going there - but after seeing the line for take-away (long line = a good thing) and the prices (Y10 for 16 (16!) little steamed dumplings), I figured why not. After a bit of a wait, I got my hands on a very cheap, very delicious, very warming lunch (especially good in the drizzle).

Next stop was a couple of antuque markets, which I headed off to, haggled a little bit, bought a couple of souvenirs, realised how much I hate haggling, and figured out that 'antique' is pretty much a euphemism for 'new stuff that looks old'. At any rate, I headed back to the old town via the fish, bird and insect market (crickets in a box, 5 yuan! - don't worry mum, I didn't buy one - I promise not to bring any live animals home with me) and what appeared to be the electronics, whitegoods and leather shoes market, did a bit more poking around in souvenier shops, then headed back to the hostel.

I'm gonna go down to Nanjing Rd again tonight to pick up a couple of things, but I just wanted to give y'all a heads up - Blog updates will be a bit iffy between now and when I get back on the 20th - I leave Shanghai late tomorrow, and arrive very early in the morning of the 18th in HK. I'll probably update sometime that day (Sunday), and then possibly not at all until I get back.

so 'til next time.

Jono

Thursday, February 15th,

Hey all - Probably a somewhat short entry today, not because I didn't get up to much today, but rather because it's quite late, and I've got another big day tomorrow.

So, today I'd pencilled in Xujiahui, Jing'an and Nanjing rd, and I got around to all of them today, plus quite a bit more.

Taking the trusty light rail to Shanghai stadium in the city's south, I walked North to Xujiahui, a business district whose origins lie in the jesuit settlement there in the mid 19th century. I got around to a few of the sights, including the church down there, as well asthe library. I also happened to stumble across a little park with an interesting story to it. So I walked into a park in the area, and noticed a bunch of statues, and an artficial grassy set of mounds at one end - I thought it was interesting, and took a few pictures, then continued on - it wasn't until I was leaving the park that I read that these mounds are in fact the last resting place of a Ming dynasty patriotic scholar, dead for almost 375 years.... so, um, I was snapping away at the poor dude's grave.

Moving on, I was struck by the apartment buildings in Xujiahui - they all seem to want to do something to distinguish themselves, I saw one with what looked suspiciously like a telescope observatory (you know, those giant domes) on top, and another otherwise normal looking apartment block under construction, which had what appeared to be an ancient buddhist temple on top.... it's all a little bit wierd for my tastes.

Leaving Xujiahui, I took the metro to Jing'an, then walked north through the suburbs to the Jade Buddah temple - this temple/tourist attraction (complete with coke vending machines) is also an impressive place of worship, and while I didn't take a look at the eponymous Buddah statue, I wandered for a while through the impressive halls and courtyards of the temple. Next I headed even further North, to where - my guidebook informed me - I could find a colledction of art galleries etc by the Suzhou river - I began to worry when the road seemed distinctly industrial, but the place I was looking for was there, so I poked around a couple of nice galleries, then headed back south.

After a bit of exploring in Jing'an, I pushed Eastward, toward Shanghai's shopping district, which also happens to be home to some of its most impressive architecture. Back behind the Bund, there's a wealth of beautiful old buildings, mostly erected in the 1930s, Shanghai's colonial heyday, and the helpful 'heritage architecture' plaques give some nice facts and figures on many of the important sites throughout the city.

Next, I headed onto Nanjing Road proper, the Neon-lit, department store lined, people-choked pedestrian mall that is, I'm told, the biggest shopping street in all of China. Alot of the stuff there was of little interest to me, but I did wander through various stores and shopping malls.

I also had an encounter with the rather... 'unique' laws of the land when I went to use an internet cafe just off Nanjing Rd proper. Apparently, any foreigners wishing to use the internet in China (or at least, use it at an internet cafe) must have their passport scanned in order to prevent unlawful internet activity by foreign visitors..... Of course, I didn't have my passport on me, it's not the sort of thing I like to just carry around in my pocket (and even if I did, I'm not sure I'd want to have it scanned into some random computer system), and despite my offering up my driver's license as an alternative... no dice, I was turned away Internet-less (which is why this update is so late, I had to wait for a computer to be free here at the hostel).

After that strange encounter, I was just about to head back to the hostel when I dropped into a food market near Renmin square, and had my first encounter with local food. I saw a sign for fried dumplings, and going over to investigate, discovered a small stall inside the marketplace, packed with about 8 employees at once, making and selling fried dumplings on the spot. Luckily, there wasn't exactly much choice on the menu (dumplings, dumplings or dumplings), so I was able to just kinda join the queue, lay down my money (Y3.50 for 4 good sized dumplings!), grab the food and go. And man are these things good - real simple stuff, just dough, filled with a pork mince mixture, folded up, scattered with sesame seeds and fried on a massive flat metal dish with about 100 other dumplings. A recipe for an amazing taste - I'm in the area tomorrow, so I reckon I'll be back for more.

Well, that was the summary version of my rather eventful day, hope y'all enjoyed! tune in tomorrow for tales of my adventures in the Old City.

'til next time,

Jono

Wednesday, February 14th

French Concession

Well, today I put aside some time to wander Shanghai's French Concession area, which, I'm glad to report, is a beautiful area. But before I get into all that, a bit of a history lesson.

Back in the mid 19th century, a bunch of factors came together to turn Shanghai from a tiny fishing village into the biggest trade port in the China. After the British won the Opium war of 1842, they established an international settlement, with the French in turn creating the French Concession - these areas acted like little territories of the countries in question - so Shanghai's French Concession is filled with french influenced architecture dating from between the 1800s and the 1930s.

My first stop in the Concession was the hundred year old Fuxing park. it's a very pleasant, quite European kinda park, with the exception of the big stone statue of Marx and Engels (who, admittedly, were European themselves - but not the kinda Europeans that were into building tree-lined streets and 19th century architecture). Additionally, like many of the other parks I've seen here in Shanghai, Fuxing Park has a set of children's carnival rides in the middle - I didn't go on the bumper cars, but I've gotta admit, I was sorely tempted.

Next stope was Xintiandi, an upscale shopping area (nothing special about that, there's a lot of them in this city) housed in restored Shikumen - Shikumen, which literally means "Stone Gate", is an architectural fusion of European and Chinese styles, but here they've been renovated into coffee shops, botique clothes stores, fancy restaurants and other things that I can barely afford to walk past, much less patronise - So I satisfied by self with wandering around taking photos. Until, that is, I came to my next destination.

The Site Of The First National Congress Of The Chinese Communist Party
Sorry, I just thought that title needed capitals - clearly this is a big place for the Communist party. Housed inside one of the Xintiandi Shikumen, the building is detailed in red (You would expect no less) and is a sort of monument to all things communism. Not knowing much about National Congresses, Chinese Communist Parties, or the sites thereof, I paid my 3 Yuan entry fee (The cheapest museum I've been to so far - see kids, communism -does- work!) and went for a wander. Actually going inside was, in fact, a somewhat intimidating experience. There were uniformed guards standing everywhere, and I felt very self conscious, so I was careful to look respectful the whole time. The main building is essentially an exercise in selective historical recollection, housing a small collection of artifacts of various Chinese revolutions - swords, guns, flags, letters etc etc, all acoompanied by signboards extolling the virtues of this or that Chinese revolutionary. Interesting stuff, but I could've done without the propoganda. The most interesting thing there was a recreation of the first national congress, with all of the attendees perfectly cast in wax, seated around a table, looking suitably revolutionary. I would've taken a picture (it really was an incredibly lifelike scene - think a communist Madame Tussauds), but, despite the signs at the entrance (which said no flash photography), the scary guard man made it clear that photos were a nono the minute I reached for my camera. After browsing through the rest of the exhibition, I took a look at the actual room in which the congress took place, walked right past the souvenier store (seriously, souveniers? What would Marx and Engels say?) and then back out into the streets of the French Concession.

Wandering slowly Eastward, I passed the former residence of Dr Sun Yatsen (another famous chinese revolutionary, albeit from one revolution previous to the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party revolution - boy, I bet the one time VCE Revolutions history students are having a field day with all these famous revolutionaries - a lot of it tends to go over my head), and a very pretty Russian Orthdox Church (which is now a very pretty restaurant :p), a few expat bars (they say Shanghai has 100,000 expat residences, and they tend to live, work and party together - I guess it must be a bit like Chinatown is to us) and up to one of the city's top shopping strips, Central Huaihai road.

I had intended to go to the Xiangyang market, touted in my guidebook as home to a wealth of counterfeit, knock-off and pirated goods of various descriptions - but when I got there, I found a giant construction site..... apparently the market has been knocked down (Though it appears that many of the tenants have stuck around - I lost count of the number of times I heard the phrase "WatchbagDVD!" while walking through part of town) - I don't know where I gonna go for my knockoff goods now (actually, I do - i'm going there on Friday :p).

After that experience of how fast things change in Shanghai (and how infrequently Lonely Planet publish their guides - This is a January 2006 edition, and believe me, I'm compiling a list of errors/inaccuracies in it :p), I grabbed some lunch, and set off for the nearest park - and got another lesson on how fast this place is changing. Alright, so I grab lunch at a bakery, and I wanna sit down somewhere to eat - so I look at my map, and see a park just down the road - excellent, I'll go there. Excpet that the park is now a high rise office tower. Alright, scratch that, let's look for another park - Here's one - sure, it's about a km down the road, but I figure I'll take a nice leisurly walk down there - it's a pretty part of town after all. So I walk down to the other park and guess what - no park. This one's been turned into what a sign assures me is a 'model quarter', a kind of gated community with a bunch of nice apartment buildings. So I ended up eating my lunch while walking down the street. Oh well.

On the way back to the Hostel, I stopped in the Zhongshang park area, to check out the massive shopping centre they've got going there. now, I think I've mentioned a couple of times that my trip into the city entails a transfer from light rail to the metro - well Zhongshang park, and the new Cloud Nine shopping centre (Cloud Nine is a big department store) is where I transfer - it's also the location of the Carrefour hypermarket (like a combination of a Kmart and a supermarket) where I bought the awful tasting doughnut a couple of days ago.
Anyway, I took a nose around in this 11 floor (9 above ground, 2 below) shopping centre, and I've gotta say, it's a bit unreal. It's obviously brand new, and not everything is finished yet - and I went in there during the day, so the place was empty - so I was walking around this huge empty space, where there were about 4 times as many employees as customers, and where numerous otu of action escalators disappear, apparently into nowhere - it was a very surreal experience, I felt like I was in one of those post-apocalyptic movies, I kept expecting zombies to come shambling around the corner.

At any rate, I had a very full and exciting day today, and tomorrow looks like being just as much fun, I've pencilled in some more of the olden suburbs of Shanghai (this time in the British area), plus a tour of China's biggest shopping road, Nanjing East road in the evening - wish me luck!

'til next time,

Jono

Tuesday, February 13th.

Another day, another set of adventures in foreign places. Today I headed to the cultural centre of Shanghai (which, due to this city's unique layout, is in a different place to the economic centre, which in turn is seperate from the historical centre, geographical centre, commercial centre etc etc.), Renmin (AKA "People's") Square/Park.

Taking the light rail then subway in (today I waited until -after- the rush hour, after experiencing the public transport system at peak capacity yesterday), I hopped off at Renmin Square station. Now, back in the colonial days, this area was in fact a horse racing track, but has been transformed into a park and a large public square, with a variety of museums, concert halls, government offices and and around.

Renmin Park is very nice, it's a rare (relatively) peacful spot in the cacophany of Shanghai, with a pretty ornamental lake, lawns (not for walking on!), and all of the other accoutrements that go with a public park. Once I'd nosed around the park a little, I made my way across Renmin Square (and its resident population of incredibly fat, breadcrumb fed pigeons) to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall.

After paying the 40 Yuan entry fee, I headed on into the incredible Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. The first couple of levels are mostly history - they've got a really interesting photo collection from the early 20th century, as well as some amazing before and after shots showing how much the place has changed just in the last 20 odd years. They also have a 'multimedia experience', which is code for 'history film projected onto a screen, except that when it rains on the screen, little nozzles in the roof spray water on your head'. Which is annoying.
On the 2nd level, there was (strangely enough), an exhibition of oil paintings from contemporary Russian artists, which was good - I don't think I'd been to any 'paintings hanging on a wall' type galleries on my trip thusfar.
But the 3rd level was the real treat. Let me give you a little background first. So Shanghai, like many cities around the world, is ringed by a set of freeways. This is the main built-up area of Shanghai, and it's growing incredibly fast. I mentioned how, back in 1990, Pudong was farmland, right? And now it's home to some of the tallest structures in the world - that's how quickly basically the entire city is growing right now. Shanghai are hosting a World Exposition in 2010, and they've got biiiiiiig plans. So on the 3rd floor, they have a scale model of Shanghai - The whole thing - or at least everything inside the ring of freeways which encircle much of the city. This thing is -massive-. Apparently it covers 800 square metres (so, think roughly 30 * 30 metres). But here's the kicker - this isn't Shanghai today, this is the vision for the future of Shanghai, so you can look at any spot within the city, and see what the plan is for it in 10 to 15 years time. Apparently the Hostel I'm staying at is gonna be a block of flats. Which is nice to know.
Other than the giant model, they also have a number of displays on various aspects of the city and its development - Pudong airport, the Suzhou River, etc etc. Additionally, they have a 360 degree showreel of the city's future (So, you go into this round room, and they project on the walls all around, so it's like you're flying through this computer generated Shanghai of the future).
All in all, I spent almost 2 hours in the Planning Exhibition Hall - of course, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but for me, it was an incredible experience.

Once I was finished there, I popped down to a bakery for lunch, then took a walk down western Nanjing road, just taking in the sights of the city. And I've gotta say, the architects in Shanghai sure do a mean line in scary skyscrapers. I mean, they're not all scary. Some are beautiful, some are ugly, some are boring, but an unusually large number bring to mind adjectives such as "Imposing", "Brooding" and "Foreboding". I've gotta say, they're mighty impressive things.

So after a bit of an architectural tour (more of that tomorrow too, I'm heading for the French Concession district) of the city, I hopped the train back to the hostel to do some washing :p

Well, that's about it for today, so 'til next time.

Jono