Black and white... oooh so dramatic

Because I am just so deep and interesting I decided to post a couple of black and white photo's that I like but wouldn't fit anywhere. Tadah, and so concludes my snapshots of Shanghai

Shanghai Local Markets

I think this is one of my absolute favourite trips during my stay in Shanghai. I was studying Chinese Culture and Society, and being taught by two amazing lecturers, one of the lectures organised for us to get out and see how old Shanghai is still thriving. His son, whose English was astounding, showed us round the old markets in shanghai, close to the Yuyuan bazaar and Gardens, teaching us about the culture, unusual foods, and market life in Shanghai.

Through the tour we saw live chickens, eels, frogs, home grown vegetables, animals and organs I couldn't identify, as well as health and safety standards that would make even your local greasy spoon 'chef' cry. It was magical, as Fudan University is not in central Shanghai we had glimpsed aspects of this market life, a life incredibly different from the millionaires drinking at park 97. In my opinion this is the heart and origin of Shanghai; the community atmosphere neighbours chatting on street corners and men in suits buying weird weird produce.

The places we where shown is a side of China that is too frequently hidden from tourists. However, I think that this rough and ready version of Shanghai is the most honest, interesting and engaging. I believe I learnt a lot about the traditional cultutre of China through this market tour and I am overjoyed to see that this type of life is still thriving. It something that died out long ago in England.

What I really appreciate is that though these people have access to Wall-mart and Tesco, they still chose these markets, that have been in existence for hundreds of years. It's great that the younger generations who want to buy their frogs and Peking duck at Wall-mart can, but for every one of those, there is still someone supporting the local economy and local environment through shopping at these Markets.

Suzhou

Hangzhou

Hangzhou is a historical town not far out from Shanghai, It's renowned for it's beautiful lakes and temples so we took a day out to visit. Typically, as British tourists we managed to pick one of the coldest days to visit (it was snowing) as well as managing to get the local slow train to the wrong station. As a result we had a bit of a panic at the station and managed to surprise a lot of Locals by a little gang of British teenagers landing. After a fairly long taxi journey we reached the west Lake or Xī Hú as its called in Chinese.

We arrived fairly late and the weather was perfectly grey, but it was still a beautiful place to visit. So here's a couple photo's from around the lake.

Aimee and Bruce smiling through the cold

Me being an awesome tourist

If you look really closely one of these people isn't actually in the statue.

A wild red panda... or a cat whatever

Nanjing Lu

 These Few shots are from my first night out exploring! After a day of interesting Language classes, I headed out to see the famous Bund!


This is it, Nanjing Lu, one of the longest streets in Shanghai, and this little portion is on the walk towards The Bund. Crammed with neon signs, enormous department stores, side allies full of street food, rollerblading salesmen and thousands of people this is the epitome of Tourist Shanghai.

One of Shanghai's most impressive department stores in the new world emporium, crammed with everything and anything you could ever want. Shanghai was far more commercial than I ever could of imagined, I new it was a cultural capital and a modern city but this is the most modern and forward looking city I have ever seen. Oxford street has absolutely nothing on this!

Here's Bruce looking pleasantly bemused by the bright lights and Chinese tourists taking photo's of us!