Since we weren’t able to get visas for India in time they sent us to Shanghai to wait for them. Of all the places on the trip that we were going to spend a little extra time, Shanghai would not have been our first choice but they set us up in a swanky hotel so that made it much better.
The hotel is really beautiful - Hyatt on the Bund. It’s a bit of a walk to the touristy places but has great restaurants, spa, gym and pool.
Also, an amazing view of everything Shanghai has to offer from our bedroom.
Shanghai is all about the buildings. 2 of the tallest in the world are in this shot. If you lined up this skyline with most any other city in the world the buildings would be dwarfed. The one that looks like a bottle opener is 470 meters high.
After Tokyo, Shanghai is a bit of a shock. Tokyo is clean, shiny, lots of green spaces and interesting shops and the people dress like they are walking the runway. It is a lot like New York and has a very solid place on the list of “most cosmopolitan cities” in the world.
Shanghai is a city that has no appeal I can see beyond minimal tourism and loads of commerce.
And, apparently, Formula One races.
We spent most of our time in areas that look like this
But I have a strong hunch that most of Shanghai actually looks more like this
There are way more scooters than cars in the city.
There are few road rules or helmets worn and it seems like an insane way to get around.
We arrived early in the morning so we slept and relaxed for a bit before we went exploring. First thing was laundry – Matt’s been going 2 weeks now so he really needed clean clothes. After some hand-waving and gesturing we were able to drop the clothes at a local launderer with a 47% of being able to pick them up the next day.
We started at the Bund. The Bund was the heart of trade in Shanghai 100 years ago. Still looks very European but if you look closely all the flags on top of the buildings are Chinese. Sort of feels like another reality where China took over the western world.
Shanghai is under a ton of construction preparing for Expo 2010 so it was very loud, polluted and dirty. I think they are working on it but it’s pretty overwhelming. We walked and walked trying to find a way across to where the tall buildings are and finally found the ferry system.
We crammed in with other passengers and loads of scooters.
This is the traffic the ferry has to dodge going across the river. Quite the ride.
Once we got across we went strait to the bottleopener building. It's actually called the Shanghai Financial Center but I prefer to call it The Bottleopener. Matt is a huge fan of tall buildings and this one has the highest observation deck in the world – 470 meters up.
Also, that deck has a glass bottom.
This is the 2nd tallest building in Shanghai viewed from the tallest.
The bottle opener just opened up a month ago so it’s all bran-spankin' new. It was pretty neat.
These are the guys that wash the windows on the building.
Can you say hazard pay?
After the bottle opener we went over to the Oriental Pearl. It’s the space agey looking thing in the skyline. It is by far one of the tallest, weirdest, tackiest buildings in the world.
After dinner and some more wandering it was time to head back.
Next morning we decided to really take advantage of the hotel. We ordered room service, went to the gym (they had a dance studio that I had all to myself!), and laid by the pool for hours. We realized that this is what a “real vacation” would be like.
The rest of the day was wonderfully lazy and not worth writing about except for the rooftop bar that had a perfect view of the city AND a jacuzzi.
We woke up early the next morning in order to have breakfast and watch the debates. It’s really nice to be away from the news right now. They both did well but I enjoyed watching the roasts they did at the black tie event much more.
We still had a bit more curiosity about the tourist sites – primarily Old Town. Much of it looks like this…
It is very cool except that the 1st floor of these building is full of crappy tourist shops selling garbage. Also, we smelled the worst smell ever. I’m serious…ever.
It was either this:
Or this:
After the gardens (ho hum) we went to the “Bund Tourist Tunnel”. This is a bizarre tunnel with a people mover that takes about 2 minutes and involves a light show.
The end of the tunnel has a “rare sea creatures” exhibit. It was enough to make us decide not to go to the aquarium. The animals are all sad and cramped and we just didn’t want to pay them money to see more of that.
So we went to the mall. 10 stories – 1000’s of stores. Sadly, nothing I really wanted to buy.
It was getting late in the afternoon so we went back to the hotel to meet the Shanghai crew and the rest of the team. We filmed on the Bund but had to keep running away from the police since we didn’t have permits.
Shanghai at night is very photogenic.
The Shanghai team is great. Stella is adorable and has a ton of pets. Geok kicks ass and is an amazing crowd controller. Mark seems to be somehow connected to Shanghai's public officials and can get some impressive permissions (got it for the Bund for the second round of shooting).
The next day’s shooting just happened to be at a famous bun shop in Old Town – 10 yards from the terrible smell we discovered the day before. Luckily, it was not quite as bad early in the morning.
They are shooting 2 different ads on this trip. One is all Matt dancing. The other is all shops and the “merchants” dancing. This is the bun lady outside the bun shop.
Bun lady realized how tiring the Matt dance is. She was almost passing out by the end of the shoot. They got a few more shots of Matt dancing in the Ya Yuan Gardens and then we had some time off before the final merchant shoot.
I decided to get a manicure at the hotel.
It’s weird to be traveling the way we always do but not actually have to do anything.
We had an overnight flight back to Singapore to transfer to our flight to Bali. We took the MagLev. It’s a magnetic monorail that goes 301 kpm. City to airport in 8 mins.
We had dinner with Jackie, Danny and Nick and witnessed both the volume of crazy stories these guys have and the huge amount that they can drink. It was impressive and funny. Between the two of them they have met just about every celebrity and either gotten wasted with them or almost got killed by them.
Turns out the other celebrities that Visa has used so far are Richard Gere, Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, Pierce Brosnan and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Interesting company.
We had a 4 hr flight overnight to Singapore and then 6 hours in the transit hotel. We discovered that the Singapore airport has a pool, a movie theater and a butterfly sanctuary. When we woke up we went to wander around Singapore. Apparently they LOVE to shop here. Walked up and down one of the main streets in town and had a delightful cab ride where the cabby serenaded us with Elvis songs.
Back to the airport for the Bali flight and back to coach seating until Singapore to Seattle. At least the flights are short. I’m already spoiled.
Bottom line with China is when I come back I’ll skip Shanghai and get out of the cities as much as possible. I find this is a good rule for most of the world.
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