Shanghai'd

Two bright spots on a cloudy Sunday.  The rain stopped.  And I had a tour guide of sorts.  As immense luck would have it, we have a corporate fellow working in our Shanghai office.  She has been here for 2 weeks and speaks some Mandarin. Both are excellent assets for showing me around Shanghai.  She had already tried out the metro and been to a few parts of town.  We started off taking the metro to Old Town, browsing through the shops before heading to Yuyuan Garden (also surrounded by an old style shopping area).  The place was packed with mostly Asian tourists.  Then we headed via Nanjing Rd shopping area to the Bund - the water front on the western side of the city.  On a sunny day, the views would have been amazing, but even on this dreary outing, it was pretty spectacular.  On the Bund side, the buildings have an old, colonial style, and on the opposite, newer side of the river, the financial district has a glassy, space age look.  Most notable is the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower.  It's pink.  And to either side are large world globes.  In addition there are numerous, uniquely shaped skyscrapers and two mega-malls.  We took the ferry from the Bund across the river which provided some great views of the city.  With any luck, I'll make it back for the lit-up nightscape.  With extremely tired feet we made it back to our little corner of Shanghai to recuperate and get caught up for my first day in the office tomorrow.