Return to China: Day 6: Discovering Jinan, Capital of Shandong

The sunrise view from my hotel window.

Good morning, Jinan!  I rise before the sun, still jet-lagged but using it to my advantage to work pack, and prepare for the day.  I devour a delicious buffet breakfast, check out of my room, and rendezvous with Tomas, Clyde, and Mark at 10 AM in the lobby.  We don’t know quite what to do for the following five hours, as Jinan’s tourist attractions are minimal, but we’ve got to do something.  

We stroll through the polluted, warm, spring morning air first to Dalian Wanda shopping center.  Dalian Wanda is one of the major Chinese conglomerates, with stakes in every industry imaginable, including construction, real estate, tourism, hotels, commerce, and shopping centers.  We wander through the five story glass and steel atrium stuffed to the brim with mid to high end fashion shops.  I’m curious to look and see, but I’m struck at how empty the center is of customers despite being full of shops.  In more ways than one, Chinese supply is running out ahead of Chinese demand.

Illuminated marble in the hotel lobby.

The chandelier is the size of my bedroom.

Dalian Wanda Shopping Mall.

We leave after a few minutes to return to the old opera house district.  A five story traditional opera house dominates the area, though it is now just a relic, as Beijing and Shanghai opera no longer draw crowds, now that everyone is plugged into public and private screens.  Strewn about the opera plaza are shops, food stands, a karaoke stage, and about twenty unidentified sources of noise.  The cacophony of hardcore techno, fuzzy karaoke, car alarms, chattering people, engines, and white noise blends together into an aural explosion that many of the Chinese seem to like, but that repulses me slightly.  I do laugh at the two dancing chefs with crazy hats and glasses who brush sticks of meat to a fast beat.

Mid-morning karaoke at the opera plaza.

We drift down alleyways of food, trinkets, and curios.  I buy wool baby shoes for my baby-to-be.  We watch a Chinese crepe master ply his trade.  I snap pictures of cherry blossoms just coming into color.  We stroll down busy boulevards, under bridges, past hundreds of joyful, uniformed schoolchildren on ropes.  I rap with a small herd of haggard Chinese elder gentlemen who are thrilled that I can speak a little Chinese.  They tell me, “America good!”  I reply, “China good, too!”  We arrive at a nature park with a small hill with a Diego River/Pablo Picasso style piece of proletariat- celebrating sculpture.  Tomas and I hike to the top of the hill where we capture a panoramic view of Jinan.  It’s smoggy, built up, and exasperating, though this corner of the city enjoys some forest, hills, pagodas, and gardens.  We see no sign of the natural springs for which Jinan is historically famous.

We stop at a market to see buckets of edible scorpions and propaganda photos of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping.  We stop at a roadside table to eat green beans and bean curd al fresco.  The day is bright, the company is good, and schoolchildren drift by.

It’s time to travel.  We taxi to the hotel, taxi to Jinan airport, fly to Shanghai Hongqiao airport, taxi to the Majesty Shanghai Plaza, and check in.  It takes six hours and we cover hundreds of miles.

The Cherry Blossoms have arrived!

It’s good to be back in Shanghai.  Clyde, Mark and I are jazzed so we stroll the old pedestrian drag of Nanjing Rd down to the Bund. Lights, skyscrapers, shops, food: it’s all happening on Nanjing Lu.  We arrive at the Bund where we take in the 22nd century Disneyland skyline of Pudong New Area.  It’s eternally impressive.  Dragging now, we trudge home, stopping for a bowl of mediocre noodles at a Hong Kong Dim Sum restaurant.  

Our day is done.  Time to sleep. . .