A bit of old and a lot of new

Shanghai is a delightful modern city with interesting vistas wherever you look. In a way it sums up our experience of China - a long and cherished history but a vibrant and go-ahead country and economy. Our visit today began with the marvellous overview you get of the city from the 100th observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Centre - sky scrapers of all shapes and sizes as far as the eye can see and beyond. Yet another city with a massive population, around 13 million. And yet this 492 metre high building is soon to be eclipsed by Shanghai Tower at 600metres which will be completed next year. When we did a river trip of the town in the afternoon the building in which we had seemed to be on top of the world is totally lost to view behind the Shanghai Tower !

We then sampled a bit of old Shanghai walking through the crowded bazaar district to the you yuan Gardens built by the Pan family, showered rich Ming dynasty officials. This is a real oasis of peace and serenity in the middle of a bustling town. Even crowed with visitors you can always find a quiet spot andI had no difficulty in taking pictures uncluttered by other tourists. The blip is of the Dragon Wall which lead to the downfall of the Pan family as only the emperor is supposed to have gap dragon motifs on his property. When the emperor visited he was not a happy bunny nor taken in by the explanation given by Mr Pan than it was not a dragon but a multi formed animal part snake etc. and gradually he took away the Pan's wealth until they had to sell the garden.

Our day was finished off with a performance if the famous Chinese Acrobat troupe at the shanghai Centre Theatre and then a visit to the waterside to see famous panorama of the financial district by night.

Sorry about the useless thumbnail but unfortunately I can't edit from my iPad. Also there a few days entries missing during this holiday because we had no Wi-Fi on the Yangtze Cruise and poor quality at some of our hotels . I will rectify this in due course. I had actually prepared some on my iPad App but found that after a few days lack of Wi-Fi the first one was blocked and then the others deleted if I touched them. In retrospect I discovered that when I cancelled the first one by the time I had reasonable Wi-Fi reception the other left in the queue did upload. Has anyone else experienced this difficulty with the iPad App ?