Shanghai Items

 

Shanghai

 

-- It's cold. Not unbearably cold, but not pleasant either.

 

-- Shanghai subway line 1 connects the two train stations. Line 2 connects the two airports and links to the first line. Imagine that.

 

-- Some of the subway lines are so new they smell of freshly applied paint.

 

-- The buildings, at least in the core, are better looking than those of Beijing. The early Shanghai buildings and street layouts are traditional Chinese or Western. So they look and feel more human than the Stalinist design of central Beijing.

 

-- There are clocks counting down to the opening of the Expo/World's Fair. Who cares? Quick, name the city that hosted the Expo in 2000.

 

The Expo seems to be an excuse for governments to ladle out public construction contracts to connected builders, who then use the money to design and erect facilities that will rarely be used once the Expo ends.

 

(It was Hamburg.)

  

-- Costs in the central neighborhoods of Shanghai appear to be on par with costs in a less expensive part of the United States. So lunch might cost $3.50, instead of $8.

 

-- Uyghur restaurants selling lamb kabobs. Yum!