more walking in Shanghai

Our first full day in Shanghai ended with a whole lot of walking. After a brief rest at the hotel, we headed out to The Bund. This is basically an area that lines the Huangpu River. You can walk on a promenade along the river. It is interesting that you can look across the river to the east and see all these modern high rise buildings.
However, along the Bund are beautiful buildings that reminded me of Europe again. My trusty travel book says that these were built in the early 1900's when the city was opened up to trade. This area was the main shipping, trading and financial district for the new colonists (British and other western nations). It is especially beautiful at nighttime with all the lights on the buildings and boats.
From there we wandered over to the Nanshi District, the old Chinese city. At one time, this area had a wall around it and most foreigners didn't venture in. It definitely looks more like China than anywhere else we have been. Granted, we have mainly been here for the shopping, not alot of sightseeing, so this was a nice way to get some of the local flavor into our trip. I am sure alot of tourists come to this area.

We also found out that they were celebrating the Festival of the Lanterns in this area. However, our legs were starting to give out so we decided to definitely return tomorrow evening for more of this area. We did do a little bit of looking and shopping. I bought some little needleworks of peasant paintings. There were children everywhere with little toys that lit up - mainly pigs since it is the Year of the Pig. It was funny, every time I tried to take a picture of a child - his mother or father would run up and want to be in the picture!