Debslubbing: First impressions

I expected all the signs to be in Chinese, but experiencing it was discomfiting and exciting. Some had English too, but not most. I was amazed by the amount of people who could speak English The drive in from the Shanghai airport to the YMCA hotel was about an hour. There are a lot of apartment buildings and most of them are skyscrapers. The homes and buildings are packed together, but there are farms in there too. The farmers live in apartments. The yellow crop is rice almost ready to harvest. In the city, the skyscrapers were beautiful and fascinating. The one that looks like a bottle opener is 6 knives (3 pointing up, 3 down). It was designed in Japan. Many of the skyscrapers were built in the last 20 years.

My first impressions are that Shanghai the variety seen in America are stirred together - they ramshackle, old and new are side by side. The farms, apartments and offices are mixed together. The city doesn't appear any more spread out than Atlanta, but it holds 24 million people by stacking them into the sky. It is very noisy and cars honking constantly - the traffic makes Atlanta and Chicago traffic look tame. Cars frequently create lanes where there are none and change lanes regardless of who's already in them. There are plants and flowers and trees everywhere - Shanghai is greener than Atlanta and Savannah. The greenery is in parks, medians, balconies, roof tops, medians, hanging off bridges, in corners everywhere.