I am always grateful to have my friend David guest blog. He has been practically everywhere. Today he offers his impressions of Shanghai, China.
Shanghai surprises. It is a city full of dichotomies. Modern and ancient simultaneously you can find bustling crowds and step on to another block and find solitude. The city of 24 million has been called “China’s showpiece.” And that it is.
The city lies near the Yangzte River Delta and is a mammoth shipping area. Tankers and gargantuan cargo ships seem to be on the river night and day. The river divides the city into two distinct parts The Bund which is the older section which was once the international quarter along the river you can still see some of the stately mansions that were built by the European powers that once held court here.
The modern Pudong district was just rice fields about twenty years ago. The economic growth of the region has been meteoric and it shows.
