Photos

On what was supposed to have been the first night of a 3 - 4 year work assignment in China, I had the good fortune to have dinner in a part of China that feels more like Europe than Asia -- The Bund in Shanghai. I received a phone call just 2 nights later asking me to return to the US for a year to help work on a different project. I am determined to return to live in China one day, but for now I have these photos to keep me inspired.

Shanghai is often called The Paris of the East. The restaurant was atop a building in the middle of a long row of old buildings that were in sharp contrast to the new, very modern skyscrapers and creations going up in nearby Pudong which was preparing for the the upcoming APEC meeting.

The Bund was a muddy waterfront area in 1846 when the first British company opened an office there. There are 24 major structures along the 10-lane Zhongshan Dong Lu roadway along the Huangpu River. In it's day, there were banks, hotels, and international corporate headquarters and the buildings have remained mostly unchanged since the 1930's. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China however, buildings were emptied of their original inhabitants and belongings, and were used for government offices, department stores, or just storage facilities.

In 1992, Deng Xiaoping made a visit to the promising area and a year later plans for a major revitalization of The Bund began.

We finished dinner late, but wanted to take in the atmosphere of this great city, so we walked across the street to the riverside and strolled along The Bund in the hot, humid summer night with thousands of locals enjoying a night out. We made our way to the wide pedestrian boulevard filled with restaurants and shops and neon lights. These stores operate next to Pizza Hut and other US fast food outlets which somehow, don’t seem out of place. There were thousands of people strolling past large stores selling teapots, silk pillows, chopsticks and more. We made our obligatory purchases before heading back to Pudong for the air conditioning, the comfort of the Shangri-La hotel and some much needed sleep.

I propped the camera on the ledge of the restaurant balcony to prevent as much camera shake as I could in this low light shot.