Shanghai Bund

Chinese opera and sublime tea tasting Performances start at 7pm, tickets are RMB 200.3/F,10 Wenchang Road Of all the sights evocative of the splendor and decadence of old Shanghai, none is singularly more impressive then the Bund(wai tan). Getting its name from an Anglo-Indian word meaning “muddy embankment, the Bund rolls down a million dollar mile along the west bank of Shanghai’s’ most essential waterway, the Huangpu River(huangpu jiang).It s on this swampy riverbank where Shanghai’s’ previous taipans(heads of trading houses)erected their monuments to wealth. The Bund still remains Shanghai’s’ number one tourist site, and even with all the things to see in Shanghai, this is the one that can’t be missed. Running the length of the Bund is Zhongshan East Road, a major thoroughfare that can be crossed via tunnels or pedestrian bridges.

During the 1920’s and 30’s, the Bund served as the focal point for the thriving city’s financial and social life. The great edifices built here held great symbolic importance.

When junks and cargo ships reached Shanghai, this promenade along Shanghai’s waterfront was the first sight they would see. If any doubted the economic prowess Shanghai enjoyed during those times, the buildings along the Bund quickly disposed of any notions that the city was a pretender. From their windows overlookin the teeming Huangpu, Shanghai’s wealthy could watch with bated breath as their cargoes of opium, gold and silver bullion, tea and spices were loaded on and off their ships.

Built of marble and stone, the buildings of the Bund are emblematic of foreign interest and business anchored in Shanghai’s staying power. They also served to assure Shanghai’s foreign residents and visitors as to who was in control. By night, away from the brothels and opium dens lining the Bund’s side streets, Shanghai’s richest met in the British and French Clubs to quaff whiskey sours while their countrymen sampled Shanghai’s endless illicit pleasures.

The Jin lao Tower is a falous Shanghai landuark. Although things are different now, the Bund retains much of its previous grandeur. To raised from simple street to an elevated, cement walkway. As one of Shanghai’s fofre regularly thronged with both domestic and international tourists.sticks and light-up toys by night while photographers offer to capture backlit by either Pudong’s futuristic skyline or the Bund’s colonial the Bund is from the walkway along the river’s edge; from here you can take in the view of the old masterpieces and the new wonders across the river.

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