Travel the World and Never Leave The Bund.
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| Bund Bull |
There are a lot of miss conception about China you hear on a day to day basis and while most of them are true they are not true about the whole of China. Shanghai has always been one of the jewels of China, as far back a most written history goes from all around the world Shanghai has always been the next big thing, the place to go, the place you can see something different, learn something new. Shanghai is still that way and is a cutting-edge city in China. The Bund is amazing the place to go if you to take a big bite out of World history all at once.
Architecture
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| The Bund 2017 |
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| The Bund 1920 |
Its architecture is one of the first things you will notice before the plane even lands (if the flight attendants let you open the window) you will see perfectly symmetrical buildings in precise rows. The military precision that was put into each row, into each brick is a wonder in itself. If you think the whole of Shanghai is this way you would be mistaken. If you can manage to find your way to The Bund you will see buildings that stand out, they make a statement of their own and that statement is I am here look at me the next great thing. You can literally stand in the middle of The Bund and see copies of the Lotus building from Indian, Big Bend from London (that actually chimes), the Swiss bank, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, and a modern take on the Ifil Tower in France. Yes Shanghai has it all and they have had it for some time, one of the buildings mentioned above had a date stamp from the 1920s.
Banned Internet
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| Google Maps iPhone |
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| Google Maps Android |
A lot of people told me, "When you get to China you won’t be able to use WiFi or Twitter or Facebook because it is all banded by the Chinese government." Well, I didn’t believe them because I know a lot of you reach out to me on social media from China. The naysayers would say those people are lying they aren’t really in China. To all my naysaying péngyǒu (that means friend in Mandarin) they aren’t lying because.. The people of Shanghai are allowed to use not only Facebook but Twitter as well. How do I know this because I used WiFi, Facebook, and Twitter while in China I also used Google and GoogleMaps in case you had any misconceptions about that as well. We can put those to rest right now. How do they do it? A lot of people us a VPN to access social media and Shanghai is one of few places in China where this is allowed.
Smog
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| Smog at The Bund at night |
Shanghai also has a lot of smog they say it is worse in the winter. So if you are planning on staying there for longer than a 24-hour layover, bring a face mask, or you might in up having slight cold systems.
Big City no English
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| Beef Noodles at The Bund |
Shanghai reminded me a lot of New York it has lots of crazy tall buildings that play videos and scroll lighted words and internet Cafes. Walking down the street the smell of delicious food overtakes you and it should, the food is amazing. The one thing we found to also not be true is that everyone walking on the street can speak English. I know very little Mandrian so little that all I would be able to do is say hi, tell you what my name is, tell you I can't find my slippers, who my grandpa and aunt are, count to ten, recite some colors, and a few other things that aren't too helpful when trying to find our hotel. So guys (who I won’t name here) come on it’s simply not true that everyone on the street can speak English and we chalked it up to you not knowing that because you speak Mandarin so why would you speak English in China. This didn’t put a damper on our time in China although no one we came across spoke English everyone was overly willing to help us out in any way they could. Even going as far as taken 45 minutes out of their time to help us.
People also had translation apps on their phone so they and others could speak into the phone and it would translate for them. Out of all the places, I have been I have never seen such hospitality and such hospitality in light of not being able to communicate with us. Also, we found a little English hub in the city full of Travelers from all over the world and Chinese travelers. They go to little nook restaurant/hostile hang out to meet and speak English and meet new people. We were impressed by China there is no doubt about that. So if your planning on going to China know that you will always have friends out there, you will never starve, and never get lost. Just never take a cab from someone who walks up to you and asks if you want to take a cab, their rates are illegally high.
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