Shanghai Nights (4)

On Thursday morning I had telephoned Peter, our next door neighbour in Sydney who is working in Shanghai, as we had made loose arrangements by email to meet up while I was there. We arranged to contact again on Saturday morning as Peter was trying to throw off the remains of a nasty cold. After contacting him again as arranged we agreed to meet up at the Hotel at 3PM. This left me at a loose end for a couple of hours so I used the time to explore the local area near the hotel a bit more. I spent the morning strolling around, taking care not to get into any precarious situations either crossing the roads or otherwise. Eventually I ended up in a side road parallel to Dongfang Road. Here were many local shops and restaurants so I chose a likely looking one for lunch.

While entering the restaurant I made the usual enquiry to be sure that they had an English menu and it was just as well that I did. While flicking through the menu looking for something lightish to have for lunch I noticed that the menu contained dishes with dog meat as well as the pigs intestines I had seen on other menus. I am sure that both of these are nutritious and tasty but I don't want to eat either (or chicken's feet) unless I am desperate through starvation. If the menu had just been in Chinese and pictures of dishes I could well have been caught out. Anyway I ended up with a nice spicy duck dish cooked in the Hunan style. As usual there was far too much food but at around 35 RMB I felt justified in leaving some in the bowl.

Returning to the hotel prior to my meeting with Peter I took this shot of the St Regis from Dongfang Road.

St Regis Hotel, Pudong, Shanghai

The hotel is a mere 40 stories and my room was just over halfway up overlooking this road. The blue road information sign just to the right of the hotel is quite interesting. While driving with Yogi and Jasmine by taxi on Friday, I had commented that I found the road signs confusing. This was at a 4-way intersection and the sign had a name in a box at the bottom with arrays and names pointing to left and right, and an array to a boxed name pointing upwards (indication ahead I guessed). I couldn't work out what it was trying to tell me but Jasmine explained. The boxed name at the bottom is the name of 'this' cross street. If you follow the arrow to the right (turn right here) you will come to the street named beside the right-pointing arrow, similarly for the left-pointing array (this sign doesn't have one as there is no road to the left). So the boxed name pointed to by the 'up' arrow tells you the name of the street at the next intersection in the direction you are travelling. Excellently logical once you know how it works!

All of the streets that we saw in and around Shanghai were named in both simplified Chinese characters and in English which made it fairly easy to not get (too) lost. A couple of times the taxi drivers (different ones) taking us to the office got a little lost but they didn't take too long to find the trail of breadcrumbs again.

Back at the hotel I met Peter as arranged at 3PM and he suggested that we head over to the Shanghai side to do a bit of sightseeing. He was still coughing badly but had staunchly come out to make me welcome in his city. We took a taxi to the Bund and had a bit of a stroll along to look at the river and the city from the river. The weather was very hazy so photographs there would have been useless. It was quite cool so we crossed the road using the pedestrian underpass and walked down 'The Golden Mile' of the Bund. Peter pointed out the Peace Hotel building which also houses a bank. Unfortunately the hotel is undergoing restoration so, even though Peter's firm is involved in the project, we weren't allowed in. There was much controversy when it was built. Here is a link to some history (albeit with a biased 'feel' to it).

After looking at the Peace Hotel and also at other architecture nearby, Peter suggest that we go to Yuyuan Gardens in the old city. This is a combination of 400 year old gardens 'protected' by lots of tourist shops in Qing dynasty style buildings. It was incredibly crowded but a good place to visit to look at what is available souvenir-wise etc. Here is a snap of me, and another of Peter with the lake and buildings behind.

Me at Yu Gardens (I'm the one with white hair ;-)

Peter at Yu Gardens

I only made one purchase while at the Gardens - a porcelain mug, containing a porcelain infuser insert for making green tea. I like green tea but don't like picking the tea leaves off my teeth. I would probably be regarded as a major wimp by the Chinese!

Following Yu Gardens we jumped into yet another taxi and headed over to Xintiandi in the French Concession off Huaihai Road. Here there are many original buildings which have been restored with the outsides kept original but the insides modernised. We walked around and looked at some of this architecture which is typically like is shown in this photograph.

Architecture in the French Concession,
Xintiandi, Shanghai

We also saw, being set up, some entertainment being put on by the Irish Consulate for Irish Week leading up to St Patricks Day. There was a stage with musicians and dancers doing a little practicing so we watched for a couple of minutes.

Irish 'line dancers' practising,
Xintiandi, Shanghai

While wandering around, we also came across the building where the first ever Communist Meeting in China was held. The building has been preserved and seems to be a favourite spot for the 'I was here' snap.

Site of first-ever Communist Party Meeting in China

It was now early evening so Peter suggested that we dine at one of the most famous and popular Chines restaurants in Shanghai - XinJiShi which is one of a chain of 'Jishi' restaurants serving typical Shanghainese food. It was certainly most delicious and I appreciate Peter having introduced me to this food. In our western cities we rarely get to sample anything other than Cantonese style Chinese food (although there used to be a restaurant in North Sydney serving Sichuan style food)but there are a huge variety of alternatives arising from different parts of the country. I'd already tried Sichuan and Hunan and now this was one more regional variety which I'd had.

Shanghai Nights (3)

Yogi was to leave Shanghai on an afternoon flight so after the morning training session Jasmine took us to the area near the Maglev Station at Longyang Road for lunch prior to Yogi catching the Maglev to the Airport. The Maglev trip to the Airport is non-stop and takes just 8 minutes to cover 30 kilometres. It reaches a maximum speed of 430 km/h for about 2 minutes before slowing down. One way trip cost is 40 RMB (Yuan) (about $AU6.50) if you have a 'today' airline ticket, 50 RMB without an airline ticket, and baggage is screened before you can proceed to the platform.

In the evening I wandered down Dongfang Road from the hotel and around the corner into Weifang Road where there are several restaurants. There is also a McDonalds but it would go against the grain include that as a 'restaurant'. I chose a nice looking place that wasn't overcrowded and settled back to enjoy a simple chicken dish along with a bottle of Great Wall Cabernet Sauvignon. At about 80 RMB ($AU13.50) for the bottle it was not a bad drop. I offered to share it with a German guy sitting at the table behind me but he didn't take up the offer so I was 'forced' to finish it alone. Ah me!

Here are a couple of shots of Dongfang Road taken from my 23rd floor hotel room window. The traffic was fairly light but even so, the frequent lane changes can be seen quite easily with the headlight and tail-light tracks.

Dongfang Road at night

The lit up building just left of centre is a hotel and directly across the street from that, beside the St Regis but separated by a side street, is a Holiday Inn. This shot is a bit blurry because of the long exposure time and it was taken without a tripod.

Another shot of Dongfang Road at night

Behind the buildings directly across the road, and extending to the right, is a school. The empty area which is partially visible through the darkness is a series of basketball courts and there are more of these to the right also. 'Ghost' buses can be seen heading from left to right on the other side of the roadway.

Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (11)

There will be a temporary pause in this 'strand' while I write up my recent Shanghai trip.

Normal service will resume soon :-)

Shanghai Nights (2)

Thursday being the first real day of the training course I was giving, it gave me a chance to start to get to know the team. At lunchtime we took the corporate shuttle bus down to a local shopping and eating venue in the technology park phase 1 development area, where Jasmine selected a range of local food for us to try. We were too late to catch the bus back so had to walk it but its only about 10 minutes away anyway. It was cool but quite pleasant - it might be a bit different on a rainy day.

After work Yogi and I went back to the hotel and then took a taxi to the Telecom Tower (Oriental Pearl Tower). This is quite impressive being currently the 3^rd tallest building in the world and is quite futuristic in its design. You can go up to the second ‘bubble’ for views over the city but we didn’t go in.

Oriental Pearl (Telecom) Tower, Pudong

A stroll along the riverbank gave us good views of the Bund and the city on the other side of the river. There was quite a lot of water traffic ranging from big cargo ships down to local water taxi type boats in size. Lots of river cruise boats going up and down too. One of the ‘in your face’ manifestations of capitalism is the boats carrying huge plasma TV screens like you see in Sports Stadiums (Stadia?). These were showing non-stop rolling TV commercials.

View over Huangpu River towards Shanghai Side

After a quite pleasant stroll along the riverbank viewing both the Shanghai and the Pudong sides of the Huangpu River, we had a walk through a large shopping mall near there - the Super Brand Mall. The mall had many 'brand name' shops as well as a more conventional food court and supermarket. We had a stroll through the supermarket and the amount and variety of food and household items was amazing. Yogi bought some packeted dried fruits sweets to take home to his family but I didn't see anything that I particularly needed. I did have a foray into a pharmacy to see if I could find a saline nasal spray to help mitigate symptoms of the sniffly cold I carried from Australia. It was a fruitless endeavour apart from trying to describe to the non-English speaking staff what I was looking for.

Convention Centre and Telecom Tower

After a trundle through the Mall we walked back towards the river to find a restaurant for dinner. We had passed a couple of reasonable looking ones - one Japanese and one Spanish and a large Chinese restaurant too. All would have been OK but we opted for a Spanish meal at 'La Verbena' overlooking the river. As a plus they had a live band too - a bloke and two 'blondes'. The meal was delicious, Yogi had a chicken paella and I had a seafood one washed down for the both of us by a nice bottle of Spanish Red Wine (I don't remember the label but it was a very drinkable drop ;-).

Yogi musing over the passing water traffic

at La Verbena

Shanghai Nights (1)

My first arrival into mainland China was uneventful after the 10 hour or so direct flight from Sydney. Already dark by the time I arrived it wasn't possible to glean much of an impression from the 45 min or so drive from Pudong airport to the St Regis Hotel. The hotel is everything that the write-ups had promised - big, luxurious, wall-to-wall service (no fewer than seven people assisted me from the car to my room via a quick stop at checkin. The butler accompanied me to the room and completed the checkin formalities. The room is very spacious with marbled ensuite, a bed that is big enough to start a small farm on, free internet yada-yada-yada.

Yogi had gone out for dinner and left me a note. We caught up with each other on his return around 9PM. With the 3hour time difference that made it about midnight by the body clock so I turned in - occupying about 1-eighth of the available bed-space!

After breakfast next morning we headed off to the office via taxi. Pretty much all taxis in Shanghai are VW Santana 2litre and they all have other things in common too - drivers with little or no English, an insane lust for speed, and a complete disregard for road rules and priorities. Lane changing is frequent with little or no recognition that there might be another vehicle occupying the space that you are going into. Pedestrian crossings are not honoured at all by taxis although most other drivers seem to be more obliging. Its not quite the same as Bangalore as the traffic in Shanghai generally moves much faster. As a survival strategy I have started to imagine that I am holding a computer gaming console and playing one of those car racing games. At least in those, if you crash nobody gets hurt! The taxi ride tends to be a bit like being in a Nascar race but without all of the safety features.

I had 'met' most of the people that we are dealing with at the UGSC office by telephone but it was good to meet them face to face. I hadn't planned any training for the first day so it was mostly meet and greet apart from a discussion with Jaff who wanted to talk to us about one of his customers. Kyo took us to lunch on the first day in his nice new car. He has only been driving for two weeks so is very cautious but he is still a lot braver than I would be in this traffic.

On the first night we travelled with George to have a team dinner at a Sichuan restaurant in PuXi on the western side of the river. We went across the Nanpu bridge which is similar in design to the Anzac Bridge in Sydney but possibly higher. It gives very good views over the city and you get to see a 360 degree panorama because the exit from the bridge on the city side takes you down around a spiral which you go around two complete times before heading off towards the south.

The food at the restaurant was spicy as expected and they also had some live entertainment in the form of a dancer in period medieval military dress. The gimmick to the dance routine was frequent changing of the facial mask accomplished by a quick pass of a fan, or a fold of the costume. It is done so quickly that you cannot comprehend quite how it is being achieved. Apparently making these masks is very closely guarded secret passed down within a family.

After dinner we got back to the hotel around 9pm and I was pretty much ready to turn in right then, although I attempted to watch some TV and read a book but I read the same page several times so gave it away for the land of nod.