As soon as I got into Shanghai, I met up with Ed and his girlfriend, Jing. Ed and I had worked at UBS together and spent many torturous nights in the office together.
Shanghai felt larger than Beijing, and has some 15 million residents. The city is split into two area, Pudong and Puxi, separated by the River Huangpu.
We went to the top of the famous Pearl Tower on Pudong side (some 300m high), and witnessed amazing views over the city. It was skyscraper heaven, more than I had seen in any city before. Some of the buildings were truly spectacular, although the smog was very apparent in Shanghai too.
After some great Taiwanese (loved the mini dumplings), we headed to the trendy Xiantiandi district to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. I was very excited and the locals were very proud of the display put on by China to the world (although it did drag on a bit).
Ed and Jing had the weekend off so we decided to drive to Hangzhou the following afternoon. Hangzhou, is a beautiful city 2hr outside Shanghai, where Xi Hu (West Lake) lies at the centre of the city. It was nice to put the pollution aside for a day or so. We walked along one of the two causeways that sit on the lake and then had some great beggar's chicken (local to Hangzhou). Ed and I went out that night, settling at the SOS club. The music was great and they were celebrating an anniversary of some sorry. It turned into a messy night. I lost Ed after an hour or so as he fell asleep in some corner. I returned to my hotel around 6am (I think).
The next afternoon, once we woke up, we took the shortest of boat rides on the lake, apparently because visibility was low! We then rented bikes and rode around the lake. It was brilliant fun; I was honking everyone, practicing my limited Chinese on random locals, and we kept on ignoring security guards and taking forbidden, but very scenic paths along lake.
We then had dinner and headed back to Shanghai. I was shattered, but had to watch the eagerly awaited men's basketball contest between Yao Ming's China and the awesome US team.
The next day started with a bang - Rebecca Adlington won Great Britain's second gold medal of the Olympic Games. With a smile on my face, I wandered around Shanghai's shopping malls, met Tiffany (friend of friend) for coffee and had dinner with Ed, Jing and Jing's friend, Cathy, who like me also went to LSE.
We then went to Racks, a cool bar with loads of pool tables. I was off my game, but did pot one ridiculous ball - reminded me of my days in the Holborn bar at LSE! Across the corridor was a club called G Plus, where I chilled until the early hours with some random Chinese students who have been studying at Nottingham University.
On my fourth day in Shanghai, I thought I'd better do some sightseeing so went to the Old City and the stunning Yu Yuan gardens. The entire area was awesome, very different from the rest of Shanghai, much older, more quaint, small stores selling everything you can think off. This was topped by spicy frog's legs for dinner and a post dinner massage.
My final full day in Shanghai was to be very eventful. We went to Haiku for lunch, an excellent Japanese restaurant. I decided we should order the Wasabi Challenge Rolls. Vanilla, the waitress, looked at me in disgust when I ordered it! After one each, we realised why - it was brutal!!! I ended up have four of the rolls, thanks to Cathy. The photos are quite amusing and show all of us in substantial amounts of pain.
Ed and I then went to the Bund while the girls did their nails. The colonial buildings along the Bund were in atek contrast from the modern skyscrapers on the other side of the river, although once again the view was spoiled by the smog.
After admiring the view from the bar at the top of the JW Marriott, we headed to South Beauty for dinner. I had some of the best fish ever (it was inside out). I also had a very embarrassing moment where I mistakenly spat out a whole lot of watermelon juice after finding something quite amusing. The waitress was laughing for the next 30mins before we left.
Cathy, Ed and I went to Muse 1. I wasn't expected much, but the music in this club was excellent. The DJ was playing some great house, hiphop and old school tracks. Ed and I decided to get up on stage with the dancing girls, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We then went back to my hotel; I think I crashed around 6am.
I woke up fairly late the next day and had to get to Pudong airport for 3:30pm for my flight to Beijing. After some lunch, Cathy, who was flying to Tokyo, and I jumped on the Maglev express train, which reaches a speed of 431km/hr! I still missed my flight though, which angered me a lot as I was 1min late according to the member of staff, but Air China staff were having none of it as most of them are not allowed to use their brains and common sense, but instead follow rules. It did mean that I could watch the Chinese women's beach volleyball team in action - I was now a huge supporter of Xue Chen, but especially Zhang Xi.
Like my time in Beijing, I did very little sightseeing, although there isn't much to see in Shanghai, but I ate excellent food and had a memorable time. Big thanks to Ed and Jing!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
No comments:
Post a Comment