1948 BMW 502 “Baroque Angel” at the BMW Brand Experience showroom in Shanghai. It looks great in black!
Baroque Angel at BMW Shanghai
Foggy Shanghai!
Taken from the Park Hyatt at the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center. That’s the Jin Mao Tower in the foreground and the Oriental Pearl Tower in the back. The fog rolled in so thick that night that flights out of PVG were delayed for hours the next day. I know, because I spent six hours at the FM lounge waiting for my flight back to Singapore.
A brief look at the Shanghai Expo
On a whim (back in May), I purchased some round trip tickets from San Francisco to Hong Kong via Vancouver on Air Canada. The all in price was US$600 which is a real bargain!
It’s one hell of a positioning flight but it put me within 2.5 hours of Shanghai and the Expo. I cashed in miles for a Business Class roundtrip on Dragonair. Due to a really tight schedule, I spent a total of 8 days away from my house which meant only 3 days in Shanghai, which were filled with debauchery, closing bars and getting back late late.
But more about the nightlife later. On the last full day in Shanghai, I visited the Expo. If I could take one memory back from the Expo, it would be queues. Lots and lots queues. All of them shared one thing; that they were really looooong!
So instead of showing you boring pictures of a never-ending queue, I’ll instead show you some pix of the Expo at night.
It’s deceptively large. That means that you can see it from everywhere and it looks kinda big. Then when you are next to it, you realize it’s REALLY big.
The China pavilion will be one of the permanent structures of this Expo; it dominates the Expo and is located smack in the middle of the Expo site.
As you move away from the China pavilion, the rest of the regions of the world present themselves. You walk through Europe then Latin America. Here you can see the Brazil pavilion with what is supposed to be a soccer game but is actually a Windoze error message on the jumbotron. Embarrassing! For Microsoft…
Asia Pacific was represented at the Shanghai Expo.
Of course, if you survive the 25 minute trudge from the China pavilion, you will reach the last zone, the Americas. The Canada pavilion actually looked the best; the US pavilion looked like a big advert. Also, no VIP entrance for US passport holders. So no visit.
Since it was late when we finally got there, we got to do a quick tour through the Expo, only stopping off in countries that didn’t have a queue. All the ones above, save North Korea’s had huge queues so we couldn’t visit. The next Expo is in 10 years. Will plan better then!
Roaming in China? Maybe…
Image by warrenski via Flickr
Staying in touch is more important than ever in this fast fast go go world. And for that, the luxe flashpacker uses local prepaid SIM cards. In most countries, it’s pretty easy to purchase a local SIM. Walk into 7-11, walk out with a new local number that’s a bargain to make calls and even more so to send SMS on. Some of these SIM cards even allow you to roam, making and receiving calls and SMS, albeit at a really expensive rate.
Sometimes it’s not necessarily worth the bother to purchase a local SIM for a 3 day trip; that roaming will be fine since all that will be sent is SMS. That’s what I thought on my recent trip to Shanghai via Hong Kong. I have maintained a New World Mobility prepaid roaming SIM for a few years now. I can receive and make calls/SMS in the US and Singapore with it. Considering that mainland China is 40 minutes away via KCR, it should work there too, right?
Nope. As soon as I landed PVG, I turned on my phone and tried to call my friend who was to meet us at the airport. I manually selected China Unicom and CMCC (China Mobile) and registered on their networks respectively and tried to make a call. China Unicom said my call was “Barred” and China Mobile asked me to pay my bill. No roaming this trip. SMS went through fine both ways. No calls. So what to do? After having to make a call desperately, I fired up my AT&T Sim locked iPhone and made a 1 minute $4.00 phone call. No more!
When I returned to Hong Kong, I picked up a new prepaid from Peoples (AKA China Mobile HK). They have a prepaid that has China roaming, slightly cheaper prices for aforementioned roaming and most interestingly, a Guangzhou phone number in addition to the HK number. Since it’s part of China Mobile, it should work over there. And we will see in December…
From the top of the Bottle Opener
If you actually pay the Y150 to visit the 94th, 97th and 100th floors of the Shanghai World Financial Center (AKA the Bottle Opener), hang around until 1830. Why?
And then, they turn the lights on! For four hours…
Shanghai Stories #2
Sunday was a rainy day and when it rains here, being outside or going anywhere where there’s a lot of people is a miserable experience.
So I stayed in, did laundry and pre-packed for my flight back to HKG on Tuesday. Eventually, all the laundry was washed and dried and packed away and it was time to eat. Still raining out, I did my customary nighttime walk on The Bund and Nanjing lu. The “massage massage” touts were out in force as well as the grifters. I witnessed an attempted pickpocket attempt just past the Peace Hotel, where Nanjing lu is still a street.
The scam goes like this:
Small guy follows the mark who is usually with his g/f (so there’s no trouble). He is shadowed by a larger guy maybe 4 paces behind at his 4 o’clock. Small guy times his gait with the mark and slips his hand into the mark’s pocket. Usually they seem to be after mobiles since you usually keep that in your jacket pocket as opposed to your wallet.
How do I know all this? I happened to witness most of this up to the point where small guy went for the mark’s jacket. Larger guy saw that I was witnessing this and strategically angled his umbrella so I couldn’t see the rest. It didn’t work out in the end. Why? There were lots of standing puddles on the sidewalk and small guy didn’t want to get wet. He rushed going for the mark’s pocket, which alerted him to small guy’s pickpocket attempt. Screaming and yelling ensued and both small and large guy took off.
Rule of story: keep your pockets zipped up.
Shanghai Stories #1
Scene from a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (cuz they have free Wi-Fi).
Sometimes when you travel overseas, you see different incarnations of the Ugly American. I had an unfortunate sighting when I ducked into a Coffee Bean near Jiang’an Temple to check email (Jiang’an is one of the favorite places for expats to live and breed ).
I’m sitting at a table, drinking black coffee and trying to reply to email via iPhone. A couple walk over to a table, a local gal and a middle-aged American guy, replete in the American uniform of knockoff pea coat, sweatpants, t-shirt and “Shanghai” hat that was probably purchased at some stall at the Yu Gardens. He looks around furtively, trying to determine who, if anyone within speaking distance, speaks or understands english. After determining that there are none, he begins his “charm offensive” against the local gal.
He begins by talking about his “work” and that China should change its immigration rules just for him, so he doesn’t feel like he’s wasted his time explaining that BD (business development) is NOT “doing business” for arrival card/visa purposes (which I’d argue that it is, but that’s not the point here). Since he was “a lawyer for the Department of Justice” and unlike PRC workers, US workers stay longer at their jobs, he is supposed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the Chinese authorities had no right to investigate him further. All in a condesending tone that would make John Kerry or Joe Biden proud.
Then, after the local gal tries to change the subject and talk about other things, like running in Century Park, Ugly American replies that he lives in a new high class building with its own running track and he likes to run there because he doesn’t like to ride the train to Pudong (Century Park) and he doesn’t like to run with the pollution.
Duh, you’re in the PRC! Of cors you’re going to have lots of pollution!
Based on the way that Ugly American was speaking and sitting, he was thinking that this would impress local gal. Local Gal replies that she’s working on her MBA, is close to graduating and securing work. As Ugly American’s face deflates, she thanks him for coffee and they both leave.
Nice.
Shots from Shanghai
Do you like the past with all its glamour?
Or do you like the future with all its “under construction-ness”?
In defense of the future (I like the past better), I have to mention that the future can be quite fast. And I LIKE it!!!
The fastest (and most boring looking inside) train on the planet. Wheee!
Wasn’t kidding about how plain it looks inside…
On the outside, plain is necessary for speed!
Compared with a few years back, Shanghai has more touristy spots for visitors. Since Xintandi has been such a success, there are other retro shopping streets opening up. Like this one near my bud’s place in Puxi.
Shanghai new old tourist street. A lot of locals here
On Saturday AM there were a lot of locals here. I was here with my bud (who is NOT Chinese) and we were hit with “copy watch” and all sorts of hawking for junk.
We were looking for a snack, so we followed the crowd
Voila, a very big xiaolongbao. So big you had to stab it with a straw…
I went to the Din Tai Fung in Xintiandi for real xiaolongbao. Delicious in so many ways! Mostly in the beef noodle soup and 5 xiaolongbao way. And unlike much of Shanghai, the service here was excellent.
This is how a regular sized (and yummy) xiaolongbao looks like
And here are some other diners, for that “you are here” experience.
They were taking a lot of pix. Of me, their food and of each other. Glad I had a good hair day.
Aftermath…
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