Elephant In Exile

Pulling myself away from the river view, our attention turned to the famous buildings of the the Bund. The Bund was the original home to many of the banks, trading houses and other facilities established by the Western powers in their attempts to open up (dominate) China. No doubt some of these facilities were financed by fortunes made in the opium trade, or maybe prostitution or other shady deals from the wild colonial days that gave Shanghai one of its nicknames..."Whore of the Orient"




Here's two shots of the Bund. Notice the dreamy modern building in the background. Uncreatively, we dubbed it the pineapple building. At night search lights emerged from the fronds and scanned the sky (no doubt to serve as landing lights for hover cars and/or jet packs). The jumbled mix of strikingly historic and stunningly futuristic architecture gave the whole place a great energy.