China -Shanghai First Impressions # 1

Ni hao
This is a photo of our tour group, actually taken at the end of the trip. Our national tour guide, Faye (kneeling), was brilliant and it was difficult to believe she's 31. Everyone was so friendly and it really made the holiday good fun. Faye travelled with us but we also had local guides for the different places we visited.

I got home very late on Wednesday evening (11pm) and felt exhausted. The following morning I realised that all was not well with my bladder. I felt feverish, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about the other nasty symptoms. I knew that I had a UTI so it was straight to the Doctors for antibiotics. Luckily things have started to improve. Not exactly the way I'd planned to end my holiday!

The trip was wonderful but quite tiring because we were on the go most of the time to fit every thing into the busy schedule. I had a problem getting my camera to charge so I took a lot of pictures in Shanghai and then only had my phone camera which only holds 100 shots (and I haven't got a clue how to download them {or if I can} as the instruction book is not that helpful).

You can imagine how gutted I was; however, I have been promised photos from other people on the trip but this might take a while for me to get them. So until then this is my first view of China as we travelled from the airport, in Shanghai, to our hotel. All photos taken from through the coach window. One of the first impressions was the roads were lined with trees and shrubs that were very well cared for, labour is very cheap and you could see people on their hands and knees tending the verges. Many people live in flats as you can see in these photos. There are some areas of the city that are very poor and people live in old style housing, which is gradually being replaced (see more photos below). The total population of Shanghai is over 18 million and this includes nearly 5 million migrant workers.Extended families share very small homes, and there is still a policy on the number of children any family can have.
This reminds me of America and Canada.The traffic congestion is horrendous in Shanghai and the rules of the road, as we know it don't exist, this road sign is designed to give drivers information on how busy the road is and I think it's a great idea that we could adopt. Crossing the road is a night mare; although there are some lights, at zebra crossings the pedestrian still had to dodge the traffic as it doesn't stop and you can find yourself stranded in the middle of the road with cars and bikes zooming around you. We were advised by our guide to get into the middle of the locals and cross the road with them!There maybe 9 million bicycles in Beijing but we thought many of them had moved to Shaghai. The picture above does not really convey the number in use.This is one of the typical streets that we saw in many areas of the city.

To be continued.........

Archives:
2008: Friday-40 Photo Challenge-3 Turndown service
2007: A day for quiet reflection