Steve flew from Dalian and Susie flew from L.A. We met late on Christmas Eve in the Shanghai airport and began a two-week tour in central and southern China. Our first stop was Shanghai, where we stayed in a nine-room hotel in a former European mansion in the city center. Shanghai is the largest city in China and one of the largest in the world with a population somewhere around 20 million. It is a sleek, modern metropolis, the center of China's international trade, finance, and banking. The Bund, a riverfront area dominated by banks and hotels dating from the 1920s, gives the city a European flavor, while the futuristic neon-lit architecture across the river in Pudong creates a skyline with a contemporary flair.
Our first stop on Christmas Day was the Shanghai Museum. It has a collection of more than 120,000 pieces of Chinese art spanning the entire history of this ancient civilization: jade, bronzes, sculpture, calligraphy, painting, furniture, coins, seals, etc.
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