Wednesday, September 17, 2008 -- waking up in Shanghai

We arrived into the Shanghai train station at 6:00 am -- early on we ran into a small problem: Sylvan had left a book and Zhoucun sesame cakes on the train and after no more than 2 minutes on the platform, remembered them and went back to look for them -- they were already gone. I went back to look through his room and couldn't find the cakes but under the bed found Christian's suitcase -- an art piece he has been working on, inspired by a Chinese artist who builds transportable cities in suitcases.

Director Ding from our hotel was at the station to meet us with a van, and we were at the hotel and checked in a little over an hour after arriving at the station. In the morning, I did a little exploring and prepared maps of the surroundings to hand out to people, and then walked down to the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bund, crossing the Huangpu river on a ferry and coming back, in order to prepare for our afternoon and evening excursions. At 2 pm we met in the hotel lobby to walk over to the beautiful Yu Yuan gardens where after taking a few group photos, we decided to let everyone explore on their own. In the evening we met up for dinner and then took a bus to the new section of the city, Pudong, where we went up Jin Mao tower, one of the world's ten tallest buildings, and designed by an American architectural firm. We took a ferry back across the river and had a view of the elegant Bund, a strip of colonial era banks and hotels built by European firms in the early 20th century. We walked along the expansive, raised marble street in front of the Bund; the many Chinese flags atop each of the colonial buildings were brighly lit and fluttered crisply in the light wind.