I've written a lot about food & frustrations on this blog, yet very little about the place we live. I guess it's time to give you guys some insight into our new city:
Shanghai is a city of over 20 million people. We've been told 1 in every 20 people is an expat (someone from another country). The city is huge. My driver says it could take 5 hours to drive from one side of the city to another. It's less like New York and more like Los Angeles in terms of building density. There is actually a surprising amount of green space. It reminds me often of Toronto - plenty of high rise apartments in clusters around town with sprawling parking lots & businesses in between. Also, in appearance, many buildings have the same 70's look as Toronto, though most of Shanghai has sprung up over the last 2 decades.
Shanghai is divided into 2 parts by the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze. The western side of the river is called PuXi. The eastern, more recently developed side is called PuDong. The city sits near the ocean, which keeps the climate fairly humid. As far as we can tell, our weather will be similar to Nashville's.
We live on the eastern side of town about 20 minutes from everywhere that we regularly go (work, school, grocery store, church). I have finally become familiar enough with our part of town (thanks in part to a good map, provided by my driver) to be able to find things on Google and determine that it's about 7 miles from our house to the grocery store I visit most. I haven't investigated the other places we visit yet!
The daylight hours are different here than back home. It's strange - I haven't been able to get comfortable with the change. When we first arrived at the end of September, I think it was dark at 6pm. Now it's dark by 5pm. And it's REALLY dark. I know this isn't super different from Michigan right now, but it was when we arrived!
There is plenty more to share, but it will have to wait for another post. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Shanghai that we took on our "look-see" (pre-move prep visit):
Wow, that really helps me gain perspective on what you see everyday. Those pictures are really good. It's hard to imagine driving 5 h to Traverse City and still being in the same city. Crazy!
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