Shanghai, China

The Pearl Tower at the Bund (Wai Tan) in Shanghai

January 9, 10 & 11, 2009

Welcome to Shanghai

With a history of more than 700 years, Shanghai was once the financial center of the Far East. Since the reforms that began in the 1990s, great changes have taken place in the city. The municipal government is working towards building Shanghai into a modern metropolis and into a world economic, financial, trading and shipping center by 2020.

My sister Alice flew in to Pudong, Shanghai Airport at 6 PM, on Jan. 9. We left Suzhou in the afternoon to pick her up. It was a good reunion as the three of us haven't see each other since July of last year. We stayed at the Ramada Inn in Hongqiao. It was a nice clean hotel and cost 250 RMB (38 USD) per room. We got 3 rooms, one for Ling and Alice, one for the driver and the other on for Elwin and me. It was like staying at a Fairfield Inn, no extras, but functional.

Xiao Jiang, the driver, knew Shanghai well. So he planned the tours for us. First, he took us to Hongqiao to a DVD, CD store. We bought some DVDs, nothing special, but, Ling bought the Star Trek, Voyager series, with over 60 DVDs. Wow, that was something. We ate at a restuarant that served Taiwanese food. We heard there were over 30,000 Taiwanese people there. They put in a lot of investiment in Shanghai.

The next day, we went to the Shanghai Science and Technology museum. It was a humongous building with 4 I-MAX theaters. We spent over 4 hours there and had a great time. When we came out, we were greeted with salespeople who coerced us to shop at their stores. We had a good time shopping, that included Elwin too. It was amazing.

We then went to the Bund at the Huang Pu River. Many German buildings remained. We walked along the shore to enjoy the beautiful night light. Ling, Elwin and I, braved the frigid weather and walked to the famed Nanjing Dong Lu to see merchants everywhere. We dared not touch anything as the salespeople swamped around us to purchase stuff. It was very interesting.

Shanghai is a great city with all the beautiful architechtural buildings. They are in so many different shapes. It was great. We didn't find too many bargains, but who could with such a short time? We plan to come back.

On Sunday, we were able to attend the Shanghai 1st branch. We didn't see any of the BYU China teachers because they were all on spring holiday break, but did meet many friendly members of the church there. How wonderful to find fellow saints in China! After the 3-hour block, we left to pick up Alice, had lunch, and then headed for Ling's house in Dagang. We arrived in Dagang at around 5 PM and was greeted by Xiao Ping with dishes of her delicious, fabulous cooking. It was wonderful.