A bit of Japan among the posts about the trip to China. This is the famous Shibuya Crossing. Shibuya is one of the centers of Tokyo, and is a very common place to meet, as there are lots of restaurants, shops, and pubs and discos in that area. But one thing it is quite famous for is its crossing. There are 5 streets with heavy traffic getting to this point, and a lot of human traffic around. One of the particularities, is that the green light for the pedestrians is for all directions. So, all cars stop, and for a few seconds the street is for the people…
Another main characteristic of this place is the huge screens and all the advertisements surrounding this area. The screens have not also advertisements, but also some music clips.
And I wrote a few lines before, this was a common place to meet, and at least for me it is the case. There is a specific point in the square, where all kind of people gather. It is called Hachiko and it is a dog which everyday waited for his owner in front of his office, and after the death of him, remained going there everyday until it died after a couple of years.
That is the story (it can be improved, but this is not my point). My point is that it is such a common place to gather, that it is not strange to meet people you know there, which is especially surprising if we remember we are talking about one of the biggest cities in the world.
Hong Kong is one of those special places in the world for several reasons. It is a city in chinese territory, and now under the chinese flag (until 1997 this was Great Britain), but still with special agreements regarding passports (you do not need a visa if you come from the EU, for example), currency (HK dollar), driving (on the left)… and, of course, appearance.
It is also peculiar because they are a set of islands with many mountains, so the space is quite scarce. Its situation has been very important in the history, and therefore it is one of the economic poles in the Globe. That justifies being the second city in the world in number of skyscrapers.
I like this so far. It does not have many spots to see, but it is clearly different from the rest of China, which makes it interesting by itself in this trip.
And before I leave, here you are two more pictures from Shanghai.
First, a Buddha statue in the Jade Temple:
And also a nice view of a park. I like this kind of parks in the middle of the city. They are like oasis.
I did not know that Shanghai is going to host the Expo 2010, but it is quite obvious if you walk a little bit in any area of the city. So, please let me introduce you Haibo, the mascot of the Expo. It looks familiar to me…
Here you are some photos from a grey Shanghai (due to the weather, of course)… You can see The Bund, some traditional area with lots of people (quite common, there are people everywhere), one of the buddhist temples (which have a different taste to the ones in Japan) and the new financial area with the tall skyscrapers (the tallest is also the tallest in China).
Maybe I don’t pay much attention to the shop windows, but I had never seen these kind of dummies for trousers before… In this country, it seems to be really important how we look from behind…
