China - Beijing and Shanghai

My three-months trip through Asia began on 6th March 2008, with its first destination: BEIJING. Difficult to describe Beijing in few words, also difficult to "feel" Beijing in less than one week. Of course, I mainly visit the touristic place, as the Imperial Palace (or forbidden city), the Palace of Heaven, the Tian an Men square But the nicest day spent in China was a 10 kilometers hike on the (original) Great Wall, it was always going up and down, there were some ''illegal steps" (5 times higher than larger...), so it was a bit a sporty experience I must admitt I nearly had cramps at the end... I have the feeling that the forthcoming Olympic games in Beijing will really bring a lot of positive things to Beijing, from infrastructures as well as social point of views (opening to the world - learning of english). For the stadium, they must hurry a bit !!!


I left Beijing and took the train for a 10 hours trip through China to join SHANGHAI

Shanghai is the biggest City of China (13.5 millions people vs 11 million for Beijing) and it represents the economical city of China. The streets, (here Nanjing Street - the most frequented steer of Shanghai) ore over-illuminated, the skyscrapers belongs to the highest of the worls and the metro net is very efficient (not like in Beijing).




On the left is the famous TV Tower with its two reds globs, in the middle the Jinmao Tower with 421 m and the almost completed "Shanghai World Financial Center", which already reached its final height: 492 m and will be (for a short while)the second highest building in the world. In that part of the city, the Eiffel tower (324 m) would be almost ridiculous !





I left China yesterday and I am currently in Hanoi (Vietnam).

Desole pour les francophones...j'attends vos reclamations !