A Visit to Zhujiajiao / A Walk in Shanghai (March 24)

Onto a tour bus and off to Zhujiajiao which according to the tour description is "Shanghai's Venice". This proved to be a bit of a stretch, but nevertheless an enjoyable and interesting trip.

  
The boatman sculls (uses a long single oar at the back of the boat to propel and steer) the boat.

  
After the boat ride we wandered down some of the narrow shopping streets.

   


 
We visited a Tao shrine...

 
...where prayers are written on a red ribbon that is then hung on a tree.

Some people catch fish in the river (given the pollution level not a personal dining temptation)...

...while other people buy 'goldfish'...


...to throw back into the river as a good deed for which they will be rewarded in their next life.
The tour over, we returned to Shanghai and went for a walk on The Bund - the Shanghai equivalent of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, but wider and made of concrete.

 
There is an interesting fact about the skyline in the background of the picture above; none of it was there just twenty years ago! Since then 300 skyscrapers and 30,000 high-rises have been built, complete with roads, utilities and all the other necessary infra-structure.
From The Bund we took a pedestrian tram from the west side under the Huangpu River (this time spelled correctly) to the east side.

It was quite a ride.

 

We had a look around...

 
...then tunneled back to the east side to return to the ship.

Another interesting fact about Shanghai's tall buildings; they are sinking. There is no firm rock below the city even hundreds of feet down, so buildings are constructed on essentially underground platforms floating in a sea of mud. The buoyancy of the plat-forms is proving to be uneven and less than neutral, so some buildings lean, some sink and some both lean and sink.

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Location:Zhujiajiao + Shanghai