If you ever visit Shanghai, there are a few neat things to see!
One thing is the mag-lev train.
Mag-what train?
Mag-lev. It's a train that uses magnets to levitate the train above the steel rails. It goes REALLY fast.
Whoa! And where did you ride the train to?
We just went from downtown to the airport and back. It's the only mag-lev train ever built because it ended up being too expensive to be practical. There are two trains that just go back and forth and pass each other at the mid-way point. We got up to 431 kilometers per hour!
Shanghai Old Town is really cool, too.
What was so cool about it?
There's the Yu Garden, built in 1559 by an official working for the Ming Dynasty. The emperor's symbol, the dragon, couldn't be used by anyone else, but Pan Yunduan got away with using dragons by giving them 4, not 5, claws! It was destroyed during the Opium Wars, but rebuilt. There are some really cool shaped doorways, too.
Wait! Those are doorways?
Yep. Neat, aren't they? Of course, they don't have doors because where would you put the hinges?
Or the doorknobs?
Old Town is a great place to walk around and eat, too. Some vendors are "cooking" the dried tea leaves for you to buy fresh.
Did you really buy a crab from a window?
The best thing to do at night is the Shanghai River Walk and a boat tour of the lights. The "Bund" is the place to be.
How can a band be a place to be? They play music.
The Bund, not Band, in Shanghai is the wide path along the river. The word band means muddy bank, but now it's a nice paved and landscaped place. It has a big building that's a monument to the people.
Now every building along the river participate in the city lights. Apartment buildings have the light bill paid by the government, but specialized lights with ads and changing pictures are paid for by the advertising companies. The lights turn on at dusk and stay on until 11pm.
Those lights are amazing!
They are even better in person when you can see the colors changing or flashing!
No comments:
Post a Comment