Great Wall, Shanghai, Sozhou

The Great Wall

Can be steep.

 Folk dancing at the senior center. 

We visited a senior center in Shanghai. Most men retire at 60 (unless, in a few cases, if they have special skills, their employer gets permission to keep them on) and women at 55. They told us, the retired guys like to hang out at the park, or go fishing, etc., while many women want to do something more stimulating. The senior center offers classes in folk dancing, costume making, embroidery, silk painting, and other crafts. When we visited we were treated to a fashion show and a folk dance demonstration of the dances of one of China's minority groups. (There are 55 officially recognized minorities.) The woman on the left must have been a beginner ... she kept looking at the other for clues about what step comes next.

Speaking of minorities, one interesting thing I learned is that the minorities are exempt from the one-child policy.

The three women on the couch in back are on the staff of the senior center, and on the right, our tour director is talking to the local Shanghai guide (whose name was "Ho", or "Rainbow" in English.)

Market scene

This is in the same neighborhood as the senior center. This was in a large structure with lots of stalls side by side, with stands for (among others) live eels, live ducks, piles of unidentifiable sea critters, meats, miscellaneous small hardware items, CDs, electronics, etc. etc. What was surprising to me was that some people did their shopping on their electric scooters. (It seemed to be acceptable ... no one was taken aback by a scooter in the aisle.) Here's a picture of a vegetable stand.

The Grand Canal 

The Grand Canal connects Beijing with Hangzhou, south of Shanghai. It's over 1000 miles in length. It was constructed in pieces, connecting different waterways a piece at a time, but it was completed the full length in the 6th century A.D. (It became necessary to move rice from the south to the north, when the population in the north required more food than could be grown locally.) It passes closest to Shanghai in a city called Souzhou, a city famous for its many gardens.

We took a bullet train from Shanghai to Souzhou to take a boat ride on a short portion of the canal, and also to visit one of the gardens. Here is a picture taken from the boat of a bridge over the canal, and a picture of the garden we visited.