My uncle is the man here. He's orignally from Shanghai and has connections up the wazoo. Because of him, we're staying at the Grand Hyatt, the swankiest place in all of Shanghai, and definitely way too high class for the likes of me.
The hotel is in the tallest building in all of Shanghai (the Jin Mao Tower). The lobby of the hotel starts on the 53rd floor for some reason and stretches up to the 88th. We were on the 78th floor or something and this is a view of the lobby area from our floor. Click the photo for a video.
I know that I've often said that I don't want to be rich, blah blah blah. But I'm starting to change my mind. You should see the people in this place. Men dressed up like triads and the most exquisite northern beauties on their arms.
This room is better than any palace I saw in Beijing. I'm only here for a night, so I should try to take in as much of this as I can. Acting like I belong here is hard, I keep gawking at everything and everyone like a slack-jawed yokel.
The following morning, the tour group went to the financial center of Shanghai. The buildings here date back to the early years of this century.
As you can see, the buildings look like something you might find in New York or Chicago. Shanghai is a port city, and has always been a scene of international trade for China and hence has abosrbed a lot of Western influence (after the Brits and various other countries pounded China into submission).
Across the river from the financial center are some rather interesting looking buildings. The tower is called the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Each of the big spheres is a restaurant or hall, while all up the main stem of the tower are little hotel rooms.
The thing with the globes on either side is some sort of convention center.
Everyone gather 'round. We had to literally drag everyone away from a TV that was airing a World Cup game.
The tour guide took us through a little part of town that looked very European, with its outdoor cafes and interlock roads.
This was a rather odd place. Old-stlye Chinese buildings and genuine Shanghainese food. A tourist trap if I ever saw one. Click on the photo to see a short pan of the area.
My uncle was in heaven here. We lined up for a half hour outside a restaurant, whose food was progressively more expensive, the higher you went. We went to eat on the top floor, to avoid the lines and paid 4 times the price of the first floor's food.
We got pulled over a few times for driving infractions. From what the other people tell me, the cops here will pick on tour buses because they know the driver is usually from out of town. The bastards.
Shanghai is a beautiful city, but you haven't seen anything until you've seen it at night.
After the boat cruise, on the way back to the hotel, I spied an internet cafe. I got off the bus and sprinted back to the store where I saw a bunch of guys sitting around computers playing Counterstrike. This just goes to show that people all around the world are the same.
Every third guy there had his shirt off and no one showed any notice that I had walked in. All of a sudden, one of the shirtless guys looked up and said something, I asked for a terminal in Cantonese and everyone looked up at me at once.
"Email?" I said, while making the universal typing motion with my fingers. "Yau." said the shirtless man and pointed at an empty seat.
The internet was my saviour while I was travelling through Asia. It allowed me enough English and contact with my friends back home to keep from going insane.
I was so happy to get to computer that I didn't even ask the going rate. Stories of shopkeepers severing limbs and mutilating deadbeat customers raced into my head. But I had nothing to worry about. It cost a ridiculous 2 yuan (40 cents) an hour.
The next morning: wisps of smoke streaming to the ceiling from each table, and me recounting the events of last night at the internet place. Everyone was appalled that ventured out on my own ("it's China for God's sake!").
My uncle was the only one who seemed impressed that I didn't spend the evening holed in the hotel room. He smiled at me and said, "Don't listen to them." and sucked down another cigarette.