Shanghai

China was madness! This was on one of our many cab rides in which Tiff thought we were going to die and Ricky and the cab driver laughed at her.

The insanity actually began with fireworks. We flew into Shanghai on the night of the Chinese New Year. As we were nearing ground in the plane, we started to notice that the fireworks had already begun and that they were flying dangerously close to the plane.

Once we reached the ground, we saw the real chaos! People were lighting off fireworks on their balconies, in alleys, and on bridges. The pictures above show a bridge that we were standing next to until, without any warning, someone lit the big boxes of fireworks on the bridge. We turned around and saw the crowd that we had been standing in had all run away. The exploding boxes of death on the bridge were getting closer and closer and shrapnel was raining from the sky and landing on us! We ran.

Clockwise: Some mischievious little Chinese children lighting fireworks in an alley; fireworks landing on everything from hotels to electric lines; us in the midst of it all.

Night views of the towers of Shanghai: The elegant Jin Mao with its slightly shorter neighbor. The slightly shorter neighbor has now taken over the ranking of tallest building in the world; the bulky design and enormity of the Pearl tower demonstrates just what a communist tower should look like. It is also 1,500 something feet high so that helps with the intimidating factor.

Great street views from the top of the Pearl. Ricky showing a little Korean spirit after finally getting to the top. This sense of pride could only have been brought on by severe fatigue, hunger, and communism.

On top is the Bund, a very popular shopping street. Also, the best place in Shanghai to be offered hashish every three minutes. Below that, the Yuyuan Bazaar. We spent quite a bit of time here, buying little souvenirs and pushing our way throught the crowd.

The Bazaar at night all lit up for the Chinese New Year.

Clockwise: One of the buildings containing dim sum restaurants and Mao paraphenalia. Beautiful animal lanterns representing the Chinese calendar. Check out the Chinese policemen. Ricky tried to beat them up, but he got pushed one time and fell down and scraped his knee.

  

A scary church that we found on our two hour search for food. In China, you should apparently eat before nine p.m. or you go hungry.

  

A bike stand on a busy street outside of the bazaar. Even the Chinese don't like bad coffee. Hey Nate, could you pain on this?!

  

All the fixings for a healthy dim sum meal. Ricky learned to love raw ginger here. We also got to know a Taiwonese man and his girlfriend or daughter who lived in China. We were seated at an awkward joint table as they were about to start eating.

Night pictures from the top of the Jin Mao tower. The purplish blue orb in the background is the Pearl Tower. We got free pearls straight out of the shell, just for going to the top. They made them into earrings for Tiff and they are beautiful. A much better deal than spending three hours in line at the Pearl tower and recieving nothing!

  

The enterance of the monsterous Yuyuan gardens.

One of many ornate guards in the garden. Everything in this place is built with rocks or built right into them.

  

Unique doorways-a-plenty.

It's a Chinese garden, you need at least one picture of bamboo, yeah?!

Ricky thought it was a petting zoo. It wasn't. Tiff finally got the guts to pose how Korean girls do while their boyfriends take pictures of them at the mall.

 At this point, we had no idea where we were but it was still very picturesque.

China was weird.

Really weird!