(101 Things About Shanghai) The Bund, reformatted

Although I’ve been living in Shanghai for about a week shy of two years now, I’ve only been to the Bund 4 times. The first 3 times were fairly pointless as it was being renovated, just like everything else in Shanghai.

The first time I went, I was on the Pudong side looking across and was too jet lagged to make any record of it, whether mental or digital. I’m sure it was nice. I honestly can’t remember.

The second time I went was a month or so later, with Doug, back when we embarked on marathon walking tours of the city every weekend. It was almost entirely construction panels and dust, with a few open viewing areas.

I tried taking my parents there last year when they were here but we couldn’t get anywhere near anything- there were temporary walls everywhere, and scaffolding and more dust. We turned around and went for a coffee.

However, this year it was ready. It was probably ready months ago, in time for the Expo, but I wasn’t really paying attention. This time, you could see stuff. And not just cranes and plywood walls and hardhat signs. And you could walk three people side by side for ages along the river side walkway. A miracle in Shanghai. Normally you can barely fit one person anywhere.

I’d show you the pictures of the lovely wide promenade that was practically deserted on the Monday morning when we went, but those are on my parents’ camera and their camera takes an unusually tiny USB cable that was accidentally left back in Canada. So no panoramas of the lovely open space and the ornate old colonial buildings and whatnot. Sorry.

I can, however, show you a photo of Gerald hard at work on his new novel, Sleep, Prey, Grubs.