Shanghai part 2



With cousin Flynn and hamster!

 Shanghai to be continued....
This is a tack on for the previous post on Shanghai (as I was having difficulties in China with the Blog) so this will include the photos of stuff mentioned before.


Yuyuan Bazaar



Huxinting Teahouse with the zigzag bridge to keep away evil spirits.

Yuyuan Gardens

City lights in the Pudong





Pearl Tower at night



Wacky tourist tunnel lights!



Last night out with our tour families.



Hollander and Hannah dressed up for dinner.

Shanghai was the end of our trip so after leaving the tour group we stayed in a hotel for 4 days that we found our selves on the Internet which was fantastic called The Astor House Hotel.  We weren't sure that the booking was confirmed as no money was taken for a deposit when I phoned them but we had the perfect luxury room with extras in a lovely old sandstone building next to the Bund for the price of an ordinary hotel room in Australia (don't book on the net as the rate is ridiculous we paid $240 for an executive suite with breakfast and access to an executive lounge with extra food on tap for all of us - great!)

Our room at The Astor -felt pretty special.



The lobby at The Astor


The Astor House Hotel was the first western hotel established in China in 1846 on the Bund in Shanghai, (now known as the Pujiang Hotel in Chinese since 1959) it was once described as "one of the most famous hotels of the world", "the pride of Shanghai" and "the most luxurious hotel in the world", the architecture reflects the concession eras old world European influence.  The Lonely Planet comically describes it as 'British public school meets Victorian asylum' - with its polished floors, doormen in suit and tails, it certainly had lots of character. 

The Peacock Room

The Bund

Mummy on The Bund

The hotel was an experience that's why I'm mentioning it,  past famous guests included Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin (you could pay to stay in one of their rooms) and the dining room had to be seen to be believed - breakfast was served in the 'Peacock Room' - the original dance hall with chandeliers, grand ceilings and the old boxes (it was called the Peacock Room because the stage was backed by an arched coloured stain glass peacocks plumage). I had visions of flappers doing the Charleston right were I was sitting! It was really nice to get a taste of what it might of been like in its hey day.

From here we did our day trip to Zhujiajiao, explored the Bund and shops, and caught up with the cousins. 

Pearl tower and also the 'bottle openner' in back ground -tallest building in China



View from the Pearl Tower



Sprogs pretending to free fall



Convincing mummy to free fall



Is that you Marilyn?

We had a great time in China and we felt as though we had seen a lot. However it took some time to recover on returning home, the experience raised some concerns about our future as a nation and the future of the world.

I walked away with concerns about our environmental impact, it is in your face while you are there the impact of a developing country's break neck desire to get rich on the environment.  The lack of industry regulation was evident in the air that we had to breath in some regions and was spelt out in one of the news papers we were reading there that quoted a Government official stating that they would not address environmental issues until the West did, and that they wanted to focus on becoming a rich nation.  Some may argue that the West went through the same process 200 years ago when it entered the Industrial Revolution but we have different standards now.  I also felt guilty about the 'junk rubbish' that we import and buy in Australia - the cheap plastic toys that last a day from the '2 dollar shops' and also Australia's dependence on selling non renewable resources - coal - to be burnt in furnaces that provides the energy to make the junk.  Bit of a vicious circle to be stuck in!

Then I started to get worried about how small we were as a nation 22 million is nothing compared to China's 1.4 billion.  Julia Gillard was visiting when we were there and it was in the paper I read that she had signed off on allowing military maneuvers to occur in Australia with China.  Makes you think about the politicking involved in international trade and why nations like China feel they don't have to sign a Kyoto accord.  And why don't we have greater controls over foreign ownership of land and subsequently natural resources? maybe I'm crazy but it seems we are selling ourselves off.

Any way I get passionate about things sometimes and now feel abit overwhelmed about it all.  You just hope that it all works out and that instead of exporting coal we will develop an even greater commodity to export - why aren't we leaders in Solar panel technology.

I'm getting off the soap box now and saying that we had a great time, the kids loved it and I would highly recommend it. I just wish that the rate of making environmental and humanitarian changes could also meet the rate of rapid industrialisation.


How Oren saw most of China!


The Petersen log will next be featuring Vanuatu in July (thank goodness I'm finally up todate) where we will be relaxing in the sun for a week and trying a bit of French, checking out the Cascade Falls, and going to Tanna Island to see the active volcano up close.


Bye for now,


Susan and the gang!