I've just returned to Guangzhou after my first weekend trip to Shanghai. I had been debating if I should go, and I'm really happy I did. In two days, I feel like I really got to see a lot! Overall, the city is a lot more Westernized than Guangzhou.... a lot of great restaurants, stores, etc. catering to the ex-pats living there. At the same time, it definitely feels very Chinese!
The one thing I was taken aback by was the pollution... a gray haze hung over the city the entire time I was there even though the sun was shining. Before I arrived in China, I had been warned that GZ was very polluted, but during my time here, I have been lucky to see many blue sky days. The haze hanging over Shanghai was a sight to see. I feel very thankful to live in the US.
In addition to the pollution, the amount of smoking in Shanghai was incredible. Everyone seemed to be smoking.... in restaurants, the airport, the lobby of the hotel, and most noticeably as they walked by me on the street and exhaled!
But I digress...
After Jason showed me around yesterday and we went to dinner Saturday night with a bunch of his friends at a very cool Japanese restaurant (Shintori in the French Concession area), I was on my own today to venture out into the city. I decided to head to an area called Taikang Lu (an artist's street with little cafes) in the French Concession.
I started with lunch at an organic/healthy food restaurant which was a dream come true. Pictured above is my delicious freshly squeezed carrot, pear, celery juice that preceded my absolutely delicious grilled vegetable sandwich. I haven't had a lot of great vegetables on this whole journey, so this put a big smile on my face. The one problem was that there was a table full of smokers sitting behind me! It just didn't seem to be right to smoke in a place like this... call me crazy.
After that, I continued exploring through the little crooked streets of shops/galleries and stumbled upon a "wet market." I've been reading about these, but as yet, had not experienced it. These are markets that sell everything from veggies to live animals. I've only posted the veggie pictures in this blog entry just in case there are people who don't want to see the "other" pics. Those are below in the next post for those who are interested. It was crazy. And there were actually chefs in there buying all their food.... not sure why that was so surprising to me.
I then headed back to my hotel where a Saatchi Shanghai van was waiting to take me back to the airport. Saatchi has been great to me in that sense, as well.... they had someone waiting for me when I landed in Shanghai and someone waiting for me tonight when I landed in Guangzhou. It makes traveling on my own a lot easier!
As a side note, I noticed in Shanghai it was a bit harder to get good pictures because a lot of people there would wave me away or say "no no no"repeatedly. I'm told that this is pretty normal for Shanghai. Unlike Guangzhou that does not have a lot of Westerners or tourists, Shanghai has been filled with Westerners for a long time and the locals sometimes get fed up with it.
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