2010-03-13 Ni hao, China! (Rick post 6)

We landed at the Shanghai Pudong International Aiport after the longest flight of my life (14 hours!) and my first time being subjected to airline food.

Molly, our tour guide, met us at the airport in our bus. As we drove around the city, I was shocked at how much larger Shanghai is than my own hometown of Chicago. Massive high-rise apartment buildings and condos densely pack the skyline just about everywhere you look and Shanghai traffic makes a bad day on the Stevenson look like a relaxing drive through the park.

To put things in perspective, Chicago is the third-largest city in the U.S.A. with about 2.8 million people. New York City is the largest city in the U.S.A. with about 8.9 million people and the USA's total population is about 350 million.

Shanghai is China's biggest city with about 14 million people. China has 25 cities with populations above 3 million and its total population is about 1.4 billion people. Our tour guide, Molly, said Shanghai is the biggest city in China, but Chongqing is the most populous with a mind-boggling metro area population of 32 million!

In addition to this massive population, China also is experiencing tremendous economic growth. It is presently the third largest economy in the world, and China's gross domestic product grew by 8.7% in 2009. China's GDP has more than tripled in size from 2000, from $1.2 trillion to $4.3 trillion. These are some impressive numbers!

One of the first things I noticed about Shanghai is huge amounts of construction going on every day of the week from morning to well into the evening. This is because Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World Expo (another name for the World's Fair) beginning May 1 and there's still a great deal of work to do before the city is ready.

Another thing I noticed is Haibo.

Actually, it's impossible to not notice Haibo because Haibo is EVERYWHERE. He is Shanghai's mascot for the 2010 World Expo, which is another name for the World's Fair. There are big Haibo statues in front of buildings and little Haibo statues inside and Haibo posters plastered all over buildings and street vendors selling Haibo dolls and keychains. I don't think I've ever seen an advertising mascot as pervasive as Haibo.

We ate slightly Americanized Chinese food for dinner at a local hotel. One important aspect about dining in China is the water isn't safe to drink, so you have to avoid any tap water or vegetables that may have been washed with tap water.

Everyone was exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel. Our trip really began the next day.