Our friend and neighbor, Mike, organized an outing this weekend to visit Shanghai, do some sightseeing, shopping, and to check out the local bar scene. Eight of us drove down on Saturday afternoon and had a non-stop afternoon, night, and early morning in downtown Shanghai. We spent the night at the Holiday Inn and drove back on Sunday morning.
Our sightseeing visit was to the Shanghai World Financial Center which is the third tallest building in the world at 492 meters tall. The building has a very sleek design with the unusual opening at the top. The highest observation deck is at the top of the "bottle opener" shape and provides a fantastic view of Shanghai. We were particularly impressed with the speed and smoothness of the elevators. The "glass floor" experience we had heard about, though, was a bit overrated. The glass ports in the floor are quite small and do not give much of a view beyond the structure below.
Next was shopping at the underground copy market in Pudong. I brought with me a very long, and precise list of items that I needed to buy as gifts to bring to Italy. I hauled out a load of table runners, men's shirts, and Zippo lighters.
Saturday night started with dinner at Latina. Latina is the Brazilian restaurant in Xintiandi which has become my regular stop on trips to Shanghai. Next we started a very long night of bar hopping that took us from O'Malleys (an Irish Pub), to Zapatas (a Mexican joint), then to a number of bars on Hengshan Road, a nightlift district in in downtown Shanghai popular with expats. At one point, several of us found the fireman's pole in one bar to be a worthy challenge. You can see our host Mike sliding down with Magnus, our hard charging head of the Swedish caucus. The final picture is from our arrival back at the hotel just as the sun is coming up. Like I said, a long, long night.
Our sightseeing visit was to the Shanghai World Financial Center which is the third tallest building in the world at 492 meters tall. The building has a very sleek design with the unusual opening at the top. The highest observation deck is at the top of the "bottle opener" shape and provides a fantastic view of Shanghai. We were particularly impressed with the speed and smoothness of the elevators. The "glass floor" experience we had heard about, though, was a bit overrated. The glass ports in the floor are quite small and do not give much of a view beyond the structure below.
Next was shopping at the underground copy market in Pudong. I brought with me a very long, and precise list of items that I needed to buy as gifts to bring to Italy. I hauled out a load of table runners, men's shirts, and Zippo lighters.
Saturday night started with dinner at Latina. Latina is the Brazilian restaurant in Xintiandi which has become my regular stop on trips to Shanghai. Next we started a very long night of bar hopping that took us from O'Malleys (an Irish Pub), to Zapatas (a Mexican joint), then to a number of bars on Hengshan Road, a nightlift district in in downtown Shanghai popular with expats. At one point, several of us found the fireman's pole in one bar to be a worthy challenge. You can see our host Mike sliding down with Magnus, our hard charging head of the Swedish caucus. The final picture is from our arrival back at the hotel just as the sun is coming up. Like I said, a long, long night.
1 comment:
Oh, Shanghai...My Love! I miss the city!
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