Shanghai's Garden Spot

I was off work today so I did a lot of walking through parts of Shanghai I had not seen yet. I walked from the Bund north, across Suzhou Creek and into the Hongkou and Zhabei districts that are north of downtown Shanghai. Not a pretty sight. These areas turned out to be by far the worst I've seen in Shanghai.

These are old, crumbling areas of mixed industrial, retail and residential buildings - most in advanced stages of decay. As I walked along Liyang Road that winds alongside a creek I saw more than one tanker truck backed up to the creek dumping raw sewage into the open water that flows between apartment buildings and shops and empties into the Huangpu River near the Bund tourist zone. The stench was overpowering and I had an urgent desire to be somewhere else.

It took me about an hour to walk to the Baoshan subway station. I had to go up and down several overpasses to cross busy streets and detour around street construction. There were open, deep holes in the sidewalks that would be dangerous in the dark. Wires and pieces of steel hanging over sidewalks at eye level. The worst was the amount of spittle, vomit, and all manner of bodily fluids on the sidewalks and overpasses in this area. This has got to be a very unhealthy area to live in. I'm glad I saw something new but I doubt I'll be returning to this unfortunate area of downtown Shanghai.