We've been in Shanghai for the last three days but before we left we held a Kung Fu exhibition in Fushon City . It was by far the grandest one yet with close to a thousand people turning out. Stranger yet, it was sponsored by Walmart and Pepsi,
The performers were again treated like celebrities, kids wanting their pictures taken with them and autographs.
Shanghai is by far my favorite city yet in China . It has everything, old new, expensive and budget, fashion and bargains.HA!
It is a city of 18 million people but only 400 years old, young for China where Beijing has thousands of years of history. Here's some of the older...
Our hotel is a step below the previous two to say the least. One traveler described it as "old European" which is actually code for one step above rat trap. My room has that old lingering cigarette smell that wont go away when you open the windows. I'm not complaining though as once again I have my own room. Hopefully my luck will continue in Beijing as we leave for the airport in half hour.
When we arrived here we say the Budt section a river walk, here's a night time skyscape scene
that I thought was fairly unremarkable except for the dyhard persistant street vendors selling fake Rolexes and chairman mau watches. The street vendors were on us like trailer trash on velveeta. At one point I pulled my cash out of my pocket preparing to separate bills to make a deal when I heard this voice over my shoulder in a Chinese accent "you want buy something? You want buy something?" I said without looking "go away leave me alone" but he persisted. Finally I turned around and it was Grandmaster offering to give me advice on bargaining.
Shanghai has three different districts the Pu-dong, the pu-chi and the Pu-to. The tour guide always repeats the names of the districts three times. The guys on trip think I get a lot of mileage out those words as I'm always chuckling as Puto means something different where I come from. The Skyline here is incredible. Foreign investment is encouraged and buildings are tall colorful and incorporate unusual shapes and designs. When we arrived we took a river cruise by night and the views are fantastic. The Japanese are building the tallest building structure in the world in the shape of a samurai sword to be finished next year.
Yesterday we visited traditional Chinese gardens and if you've seen one, you've seen em all.
We also visited a small water city only accessable by car after 1988. They call it the Venice of China with a complex system of locks connecting two large rivers. 
We also visited a silk factory and learned all about how silk is made just before they ushered us into the gift shop. I'm sure I'm going to hell for this shot...
The air quality is as bad as I remember it or worse. Shanghai actually has the cleanest air in China and coming here was the first time I've seen blue sky or sun since we arrived. The smog is so bad in parts of china the sky is always gray and the becomes a red orange obscurred blob.
It supposed to be rain and snow in Beijing which will be quite a change from the heat wave we had last year.
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