Touring with George

We had a great day yesterday. Very busy, touring with George our tour guide. It was fantastic to have our own personal tour guide who seemed to know everything about Shanghai. As I said before, George is a guy who speaks almost perfect english, but who has only visited the U.S. once. When asked about how he learned to speak so well, he told us that he has been doing tours for over 10 years and spends a good deal of time with Americans. Anyway, the day started with a tour of this fantastic temple. Overwhelming is the only world for it! The detail in the Buddhist statues, all made of carved wood and gold! Gaffer was surprised at how religious the people were, prostrating and waving their incense around. It was a great atmosphere. After the temple, we hit the Bund. Unfortunately, it was raining a bit, and the visibility wasn't very good, so we walked up and down the river side. (Both the temple and the Bund are places we will be coming back to again) After the Bund, George took us to one of his favorite restaurants and that was a real experience! One of the things we had was this incredible beef which had a taste like I've never had before. George told us more about what it's like to actually live in this city. Apparently there is quite a large number of foreigners living here. The pulse of progress and activity in this city is palpable. There are a lot of quaint, old housing areas which are in the process of being ripped down all over the city. At first, it seems sad that this old world stuff is coming down. However, George explains that the reality behind these "quaint, old houses" is the cold fact that the people living there are families who share one central bucket for a toilet. I can't imagine what is must be like living in a hovel, sharing my shit bucket with my next-door neighbor, and when I walk out my door, my neighbors across the road are a bunch of yuppies in business suits on their way to their high paying jobs in the multi-national bank. The lesson for us here is that it's all well and good for us to regret the destruction of the old and the quaint, but who of us is willing to volunteer to live in filth where there is no running water? Who are we to tell people that they can't progress and come into the 21st century?

After lunch, we went to Yu Garden. Yu Garden is a beautiful garden formerly owned by a very rich owner. I found the garden a bit more geared for tourists than the temple. It was very nice, but the gift shops were a bit overwhelming. I'm not very interested in gift shops, myself. It is a place where there is a great deal of pressure to buy gifts. Every step is accompanied by the calls of the hawkers trying to sell you something.

There is an irony in this place, as well. It seems everywhere you go, there is inevitably people who will come up to you and say, "Rolex, Rolex you want Rolex?" while shoving some cheap piece of crap watch in your face. The irony here is that I can't imagine anyone stopping to buy this crap. Do these people imagine that we are going to stop and say, "Yes, my good man, take as long as you like to show me your crappy knock-off Rolex watches. By the way, your sales pitch is very convincing.....I especially like being pulled by the shirt and have your wares stuck in front of my nose. Let's talk." I have yet to see anyone buying from these guys, and you would think they would change their marketing strategy at some point. Oh well....

Photos and video up at the links below: