Dear Diane, Dear Shaded Viewers,
Here are a few photos from the Shanghai leg of my trip.
This time I stayed in the French concession. It is the neighborhood in Shanghai that was under French colonial rule at the turn of the century. It’s an amazing contrast. It’s all this open space and greenery in the heart of Shanghai. All the streets are even lined with fig treas imported from France! You could really see the ring of sky scrapers around all the old villas from my hotel room.
There are tons of shops now in the French concession. We went to one of Sally’s friends shops-Wang Yi Yang, who she’s including in her exhibition on Shangahi at the Royal Ontario Museum (http://www.rom.on.ca/index.php) this spring. My photos don’t show it well, but the the art direction of the store is amazing. Everything is covered in brown mat paper. Unfortunately he lost the lease on his store and has to move this month so he was having a big sale. He had wallpapered his store with photos of all the items in the sale.
Right behind Wang yi yang’s store is a new little cafe called Ginger. True to their name they have the most amazing fresh ginger and honey tea.
One night Sally, Christopher Phillips from the ICP (http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.732135/) and I went to dinner in the Bund. The Bund is the neighborhood that was under German control for a long time. The entire neighborhood is filled with massive art deco buildings. Sally took us to Hamilton House (www.hamiltonhouse.com.cn). Hamilton House is in a remodeled art deco building. All of the meat is free range brought in from Australia. One great new trend going on in Shanghai right now is natural and organic restaurants. There’s finally a lot of concern about the food system and organic/natural restaurants seem to be popping up all over.
Sally and Christopher told me a crazy story about some monks they met i Plaza 66, the most expensive shopping mall in Shanghai. In Christopher’s own words….
“Here’s the photo of Sally and the two alarmingly worldly monks that she
met at Plaza 66.
Sally
They were drinking coffee and eating oxtail soup,
wearing what appeared to be custom-made robes and expensive trainers. They
provided some instant wisdom: they told Sally that she had highly
developed social skills, but was sometimes too open with other people. Also
they said she should be careful of her carb intake. Only in Shanghai.”
much love,
Graham