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.