Life in Shanghai

Sculptures by Chinese Sculptor and Artist Xie Agie

If you are ever in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai, you will see these three gentlemen greeting you. My friend Jeff is still in Shanghai working, and has posted some fun photos of his life there!

Jeff with the three gracious gentlemen

The view from the Park Hyatt in Shanghai is spectacular.

The lounge

I love this photo Jeff took of the city at sunset

Down by the South Bund waterfront there is a newly developed restaurant and shop area called the Cool Docks.  There you can find all sorts of different restaurants, including Bubba's, serving down home Texas barbeque!

The Cool Docks

The Jing'an Temple is on West Nanjing Road in the downtown area of Shanghai.  It has a 780 year history.  The temple was located on the bank of the Wusong River in the 12th century, but burned to the ground in 1972.

Reconstruction began in 1984, and the Temple was again opened to the public in 1990.

Jing'an Temple at night

There is an exhibition hall of Buddhist Relics at the temple site, and a fair is held yearly here during April which draws worshippers from far and wide.

Maglev Train

The Maglev train in Shanghai is a high-speed magnetic levitation train which connects the airport to the outskirts of town where people can easily switch over to the Metro.  The train usually runs between 80-100 kilometers per hour, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-65 mph, but it can run up to 90 to 125 mph!

Shanghai Peace Cinemas

There are quite a few movie theatres in Shanghai that show English language films, but only about 30 films are allowed to be imported every year, so the choice is limited to the big summer blockbusters and popular Hollywood films.

Foreign films are shown in the original language with Mandarin subtitles.  The exception is children's films, which are dubbed into Chinese.  They also provide Chinese language films with English subtitles.

Don't expect the usual popcorn movie fare like we have in American movie theatres, though!  Jeff was surprised to see the snack menu:

Movie Snacks

Dried Duck's Gizzards?

I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather have popcorn!