Again I have to catch up with the adventures from yesterday. It was a relaxed day. In the morning I took the bike and went around nearby. I found the "Peace park" and in deed, people are in real peace there:
But it was also very loud in some parts, people dancing to their ghetto blasters in every style, old man with their instruments, playing cards, others playing badminton, going around with rented ships etc. It was astonishing how full the park was on a normal working day in the morning! Most people were old, but some also young.

Afterwards, I found the Carrefour market to by some ingredients for sunday. We'll have lunch at Antonio's house, he invited us spaniards to taste the "Delicias ibericas" I brought him from Madrid. But as I'm only half spanish, I'll add a Kartoffelsalat. :-)

Then I ate in the students canteen and had an awful coffee on a sunny bank on the campus'. Das Photo ist speziell für meine besten Freundinnen :-)

Then I brougth my shoppings home and went to the city center (by metro not by bike ;-) ) to explore a different district, the "French concession". It's as the name says, haha, the part of the town where the French settled down and it still maintains a very european flair. It is quite similar to the "Viso" en Madrid but with much more traffic. Anyway, if I had to live in Shanghai, this would be the place:

Do you see how GREEN Shanghai is? Not only there, I notice it everywhere, they made a great effort to enrich the environment with trees and green zones. Today I learned about it in a visit to the "Urban Planning Exhibition Center". But I'll talk about this tomorrow!

Whow, one day without writing and already happenend such a lot of things that I don't know where to start and what to select.

Yesterday I went on a day-trip with Pau. Pau is a very symphatic Architecture Professor from UPC (University of Barcelona). He lived two years in Berlin (!) but that was five years ago and he doesn't want to practice German. Besides Pau, I know now: Rita, Portuguese and also Architecture Professor from UPC (educated in the german school in Lisbon!), John from Miamy, Psychology Professor, his friend Thomas from Hamburg (!), living here already for three years in a multi-country proyect for professors-education and Ronnie from Italy, living in Kopenhagen but son of an american father and an israeli mother, he has three passports!  Really, it is always SO interesting to meet people on those trips, but here it seems that the strangest of the strange have come together (me included, of course...)

But I wanted to tell about our trip. We went to Suzhou (spell: Zuschou), to the west of Shanghai, half an hour with a speed-train like AVE or ICE.Very cheap, one way costs only 5€! Suzhou is famous for its anxient gardens, temples and channels for what it is called the "Venice of Asia". Well... it was not bad, but not what one expects when hearing Venice of Asia... First of all, at our arival we realized soon, that it is also Million-city. It's more, during the whole train-ride we did not leave urbanized area. We arrived at a gigantic train station and had to walk half an hour to get to the centre. Of course, we could have taken a Rikscha or a taxi. The first thing we visited was an eight floors high Pagode, we climbed 200 steps to get the view from the top. The other photo is the entrance, notice the illuminated price-board and the nice tourist-busses which blocked the view for a good photo.

Afterwards we walked a lot to get to the main anxient streets in the old center, where are plenty of canals but frankly not so nice as in Venice or Amsterdam. This photo is the only I could make without tourists or modern buildings in the background. The street which according to the "Lonely Planet Guide" was the nicest, was full of tourist shops, restaurats and people, people, people... OK, it was first of may, everybody was on holidays. On the right you see the famous "dumplings", in this case very sophisticated.
But finally we got to one of the axcient gardens, "The couple's garden", VERY VERY nice! It was not only a garden, but more an estate of sombody wealthy of the whatever dynasty, nearly a labyrinth of houses and gardens. This is exactly what I would like to have when I retire!! :-)
The decorations are all of carved wood and the plantings between rock etc. quite romantic.
  We passed quite a long time there, wandering around, not saturating after all the dust and noise of Shanghai.
But then we decided, instead of walking more around and see other gardens or temples of the same style, to go to a neighboured town called Tongli which could not be more than half an hour away, by Taxi of course. We found one soon and the driver understood at the first instant. But then it was quite farther than we thought, and we got into a traffic jam, so at least it was one hour to get there. That was bad, because we had only 1,5 hours to spend as the return also needed one hour and the train was at 18h. But it was worth the effort, this town was really small at least, ok, it was not a town, it was a part of the urban zone we still did not left in all this time and it cost entry! Everything has entry fees, not only the museums and temples, also the garden and tourist areas like that. The streets reminded me a little of "los pueblos blancos de Andalucia", although not as white as them... There were also a lot of people, tourist attractions, theater, but everything more authentic than the other city before. The only pity was, that we did not find the "Sex museum", read here about it: http://www.thechinaguide.com/?action=activity/view&activity_id=172

What we needed urgently after the long taxi trip and after paying again an entrance fee for the village (100 Yuan!) was a good cold beer (píjiǔ [烹])... We got one in a shop and sat on a bank on the center square to let the impressions act on us. I don't mean so much the tourist attractions like the old women dancing with a dragon,  but more the people. Here there were much more "hortera"/"schräg" then in Shanghai, gente del pueblo... Look at the orange shoes, the hair cut of the boys (Manga-style) and the old man in pijama!! It's not a joke, its a chinese style, pijama style...

Yesterday we had 27ºC and humidity, today 18º and rain... so a wonderful day to visit the Shanghai museum. If there hadn't been so many people...But anyway, I have time! After half an hour making the cue I got an audioguide and passed the 4 stories of the museum. What to see? Well, skulptures of stone and bronce, calligraphy, Jade, paintings, clothes from ethnic minorities, mints, furniture and of course ceramics and porcellain of different Dynasties. What I missed was to learn something about the history in the sense of understanding which dynasty was when etc. but that was not easy to see. All was ordered according to the mentioned themes, but not according to ages. Anyway, quite interesting what they knew here, and much earlier than in western countries!

Seit gestern bin ich stolze Besitzerin eines FAHRRADS!! Da muss ich um die halbe Welt reisen, um mich endlich mal wieder wie früher ganz normal mit dem Fahhrrad durch die Strassen zu bewegen :-) Naja, ganz normal nicht, man fährt halt wie man kann, Zickzack um den Fussgängern auszuweichen, über die Strasse wenn man kann (ist ja ganz egal ob es grün ist, die Autos fahren einen trotzdem um, hier gilt das Gesetz des Stärkeren!). Ist aber echt klasse, jetzt brauche ich vom Guesthouse zum Bus nur 5-10 min statt 20 min laufen.

Das ganze kam so: Xuefeng meinte eh ich bräuchte ein Fahhrrad, und er würde mal einen fragen, der welche verkauft. Gestern rief er dann an, derTyp  hätte eins für mich, für 200 Yuan, am Ende kauft er es mir dann für 120 wieder ab! Also wie ne Miete von 80. Jetzt dürft ihr mal rechnen, 8 Yuan sind ca. 1€, na? genau, das Rad hat nur 25€ gekostet und wenn ich's wieder verkaufe nur 10€, da musste ich doch zugreifen! So einfach war's dann aber doch nicht, dass mir eines "passt", habe halt keine Chinesengrösse. Ausserdem waren das alles Rostlauben an denen die Bremse nicht funktioniert usw. Aber dann war doch ein akzeptables dabei, ich sitze darauf noch ein bisschen krumm, aber es reicht, so sieht's aus:

Siento que cuento esto en Alemán  pero los Españoles no entendéis de bicis, que ya pensáis que es peligroso ir en Madrid ;-)
Bueno, desde hoy estoy de vacaciones hasta el domingo!! No me lo creo todavía.  Lo que pasa es que el uno de mayo está libre y para tener un "puente" de tres días  pasan el lunes y martes al sábado y domingo, con lo cual se trabaja siete días para tener tres libres... Así que di clase ayer y anteayer y para esta semana solo me quedaría una clase el viernes, la cuál he movido hábilmente al martes que viene :-) Todavía no sé como aprovechar todo este tiempo, pero al menos no tengo que preocuparme y si resulta algo interesante hasta puedo hacer un viajecito. Me han sugerido bastantes cosas, pero todavía no sé adonde. De momento, hoy he hecho sightseeing con Antonio y familia y mañana quería ir con Pau (un arquitecto que está por aquí)  a Suzhou, una ciudad con muchos jardines, pero hay lluvia anunciada así que lo dejamos para el miércoles. 
Aquí algunas impresiones de hoy:

Ein Tempel in der Zone des Yuyuan Gartens

Teuerstes Teehaus von Shanghai

                               Kontraste

 Las guapas de Shanghai

Hier gibts frischen Fisch!

 
para mi chiqui :-)

Finally yesterday I could not write in the blog, toooo tired after half day exploring the downtown city and afterwards goint to the campus and giving class till 19:30h. The pity is that after those evening classes I have to take the bus at 20:30h so I am home at 21:30h. Yesterday I also needed to go to bed early because today I got up at a 5:45h to take the bus at 6:45h just to arrive on time for my class at 8h. Now I just arrived from the evening class, I prepared my evening green tee, so I'm ready to tell you finally about what I saw yesterday in the Shanghai city!!!
But first I want to tell you about the metro system. It is high technology top standard I would say. The ticktets are all equipped with RFID and recyclable, to get out you have to stick it into a slot to open the barrier. In the stations, it is super-easy to see which side you have to take, the way the metro will made is colored, and the way it already passed is grey. The platforms are absolutely safe with transparent walls and doors that open when the train stops. And inside the cabins you have LED markers on the line, green for passed, red not yet reached and orange for the current position.

I went 6 stops with line 10 from Tongji University to Nanjing Road, THE shopping street. But no to see the shopping area, first I went straight to the Suzhou Creek, a side arm from Huangpu River. I followed it and had minute by minute a better view to the incredibly impressive Pudong-Skyline.

  Then I reached the part  where the story of Shanghai began and where you have the best look at Pudong (it's the financial district with airport etc.), called "The Bund". This is the part of the Huangpu River where the merchandise was unshiped about only 100 years ago and where today is a beautiful tourist promenade with view to the river and the opposite waterside. There is a tunnel for tourists but as it costs about 10€ I didn't go, maybe another day.

                                                                         And very very very very beautiful are also the flower arrangements everywhere. The city itself is surprisingly green with many trees in the streets, but additionally they plant flowers everywhere, on the ground, on the walls and even on the traffic lights!

 Well after a while on the Bund I walked through the city, the main shopping street which is like any else over the world and I also went inside one of those inside markets where everybody has a 2x2 m shop. Here you have also some impressions, I loved the pink shop :-)

 Not much to tell right now, life is going on. Taking the morning shuttle bus to Jiaping campus and returning in the evening. Here you have some impressions of Shanghai in the morning traffic jam.

Today I'm working long again but to prepare for the next two days, so tomorrow I can take half day off. I am so keen to see the downtown.
Tomorrow I'll tell you.