Shanghai Day 1

Tuesday 26 October 2010

By a stroke of good luck (and a bit of hard work) i find myself on a company trip with some colleagues to Shanghai once again, barely two months since i was last there!

Found this lovely hotel, Gallery Suites in the charming French Concession area. It's a refurbished 1933 art deco building along Heng Shan Lu and approximately 10 minutes walk to Xu Jia Hui metro stop. I love it!







Did the touristy thing this time and headed to Yu Yuan/ Cheng Huang Miao area for the famous Nan Xiang xiaolongbao, even though every Singaporean who's tried it says they prefer the ones to the likes of Crystal Jade or Din Tai Fung back home.



























Then walked along Nanjing Lu, just about what every tourist does in Shanghai too.



The refurbished Peace Hotel (He Ping Fan Dian). We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but anyway I thought i preferred the old interior.



View of the Pearl of the Orient TV tower outside Peace Hotel at the end of Nanjing Lu towards the Bund.









Crossing over from Nanjing Lu to the Bund (外滩) on Puxi side of the Huangpu river in Shanghai. It was freezing! Us, not the river.



Impressive collection of art deco styled buildings housing mostly banks it seems. I love how wikipedia has a complete street elevation drawing that names each of the building along the bund.







Night view of the Lujiazui Financial District in Pudong across the Huangpu River. And yes, that IS the real moon.



I don't know what the boys were up to while on our way to dinner.



Me, i was just pretending to see how it feels like to come home to a super posh mansion on the bund.



Fusion dinner at M on the Bund on the 7th Storey at 20 Guangdong Lu.





Since it got dark pretty early, we were continuously surprised by how early the time on our watches showed. Decided it was too nice a night to head back even though it was past 10pm, so we cabbed to Xin Tian Di for coffee, while waiting for Chris to arrive.


I have no idea why Aristo is offering me 10 yuan for taking his picture.


"Children, off to bed now, children!" Trying out Aristo's spectacles.

Next: Shanghai Day 2

Shanghai Day 2

Wednesday 27 October

I can't believe i'm at the Shanghai World Expo again!!!

My colleagues were kind enough to make the German Pavilion our first stop, despite the 3.5 hours queue, since i regrettably missed it during my last trip. Thanks guys! Lots to see inside so i guess it was worth the wait huh!



Um the queue kinda drove us nuts... sort of, ha ha.





Oops no photos of the exterior since i'd already posted them in the previous Shanghai World Expo entry.














Little girl feeding carrots to a virtual rabbit. Kinda creepy if you ask me.


I don't know if you remember the Cabbage Patch Kids? Uh-huh?



I thought it was a pity my colleagues didn't make it to the Spanish Pavilion. Well at least they made it to the Spanish restaurant. The tapas didn't quite make it though... as in the tapas was not good.







We kinda split up after lunch and i went off on my own to check out other pavilions i didn't visit the first time around.

Sweden Pavilion




I kinda like the porosity of the facade from inside looking out as i rode the up-escalator.


Ikea's dandelion lamps!

Thought this exhibit was pretty clever. Viewed from one side you see an image of Stockholm's shame (picture A), industrial pollution and waters around Stockholm that were heavily polluted household wastewater and view from the other side you see an image of Stockholm's pride (Picture B), where water sanitation and strict environmental policies have made Stockholm's waters clean enough to swim in.


Picture A


Picture B

Then i popped over to the Turkish Pavilion, since i'd just been to Turkey earlier this year and totally loved the country. The interior was dark and showcased the ancient archaelogical sites of Turkey like the Ephesus bibliotek where i posed for a picture not too long ago.



I wondered if the queue was already so long, did buying a turkish ice-cream here include the show of fancypants trickery by the ice-cream seller like it would in Istanbul.



Not sure what made me walk into the Polish Pavilion but i didn't regret it one bit.





The multi-media projections of rain falling on the white cut-out rainforest backdrop accompanied by rainforest sounds were delightful. This is kinda like the sort of experiential exhibition i was talking about in my earlier post that the French Pavilion had and the Singapore one didn't.


I kinda like how the amorphous 2D rainforest morphed into a plan view of a grid-like lattice network of a city.

After that i hopped into the Belgium-EU Pavilion cos i fancied some belgian waffle, fries and chocolates. Except the queues for the food were longer than the queue to get in so i copped out.




I just can't get enough of ultra large moving multimedia projections that surround me and transport me immediately to that country. I'd stand in the middle just to be surrounded by the projections of the different cityscapes and vicariously soak up the atmosphere.


Heh i've seen the real thing. Uh... as in the real Manneken Pis statue in Brussels earlier in March this year. It's tiny. Uh, I mean, he's tiny.

Finland Pavilion



Interesting how once inside, you're engulfed by the inner walls of the huge bowl. Then you kinda walk up this ramp that's sandwiched inside the thickness of the facade walls of the bowl.





We left the Expo when it got dark around 6pm and went to 田子坊 on Tai Kang Lu, where we contemplated between Balinese and Thai for dinner, amongst other choices like New York pizza, Vietnamese pho and something else i can't remember. Oddly enough none of the eating places featured Shanghainese or Chinese food. Settled for Thai and it was a good choice.













Dessert and drinks and Consumme where Howe Choon took us the last time we were here. The menu kinda looked different and neither the chocolate nor cheese cake was any good. We were also amused by the huge cup, or rather bowl that contained our hot chocolate.







Next: Shanghai Day 3