Day 1

“Exploring Shanghai”

A random street in Shanghai

It’s around 10.30am as we arrive at our hotel in Shanghai, just to late for breakfast which end at 10.30. Great timing, especially since all three of us were kind of hungry. After checking in at the Manhattan Bund Business Hotel, we dropped our bags in our rooms and went out to explore Shanghai. We walked a while to find a very very busy street in the middle of Shanghai, Amsterdam is nothing compared to it. Everywhere you looked, it was just black of people. In the middle of the street there were these small trains that drove up and down the street. During this walk we were also looking for a good place to have breakfast/lunch or just FOOD! Finally we found a place that looked safe enough to eat and we settled down for some spaghetti and rice.

After lunch we continued exploring Shanghai. We walked and walked and walked, we saw so many things. We passed the Porsche Center of Shanghai, where a few very cool new cars were parked outside. Very close to the Porsche dealer was a small park with a very nice view to one of the many cool buildings that Shanghai houses.

Very cool building in Shanghai

At the moment I took this picture we had walked for about four hours in total. We decided it was time to go back to the hotel and take a hot shower. After this we decided not to go out anymore and take some rest. We ate a pizza at the hotel, which was really tasty and after that I unpacked my bag in my room. A little later we took our apads to check for a good bar to go. We found that very close to the hotel there should be a “famous” bar called “Lounge 18″. After drinking something in the hotel cafe we went out to find the bar. We walked for a long way, trying to find the address that was named on the web. We didn’t find it and tried to get a taxi driver, maybe they could know the place. They all nodded their head, nobody knew. Once again we went on our own, we had to find the bar no matter what it took. We walked past the bund, of course on the side where all the buildings were… At number 18 we looked at the sign outside, there was no “Lounge 18″… Kind of sucks hah… At the end of the road we still didn’t find it, it was cold, we were tired and we had no beer. At that point we decided to go home, have another good look at the apads and go back the next day to check it out.

Day 2

“Jade Buddha Temple”

Buddha

After a very good night of sleep on a godly bed we had breakfast at 10am in the hotel. We were a little late for breakfast, but in time to finish it before 10.30. The downside of going this late is that all the food is old, this was the last time we ate breakfast in the hotel at the bar… After breakfast we went out to the Jade Buddha temple which is located somewhere in the middle of Shanghai. It’s really weird to see an old temple like this in the middle of skyscrapers and busy traffic.

Contrast between old and new

We walked around in the temple for about half an hour, before leaving again. We’ve been in all the public rooms and bought some incense. The temple has been founded in 1882, with the jade Buddha imported from Shanghai. Nowadays the temple is still being used by monks, because of this most parts of the temple are forbidden to access. When we finished walking around we also took a look at the gifts shop, but the prices were to high and also the quality was less than in the Nanputuo Temple here in Xiamen.

We continued are path through Shanghai after having lunch, we just walked around to see what we found. After a while we turned into an alley, just to take a look. According to Robert the neighborhood looked like a typical old slum, however I cannot find anything about this on the web. Fact remains that it had been fully restored and rebuild, it now looks like a upper-class neighborhood.

An alley in Shanghai

We walked back to the hotel and arrived around 5pm. Once in my room I first took a nice hot shower, since the weather was really cold in Shanghai. At least colder than what I’m used to in Xiamen. At around 6 we went out again. Nearby the hotel we found a steakhouse, since we eat steak at least once a week we decided to try how good the meat was in Shanghai. Well… I can tell you that, this was the first and last time that we went to that restaurant. The meat was so bad, it was very fat and it tasted like crap. We could not choose how we wanted our steak and we could not pick our sauce. It was a bad place to have dinner… The good thing was that we were full after dinner, that counts for something right?

And so it happened that we sat at the hotel again, with our apads looking for a place to go out. We found a couple of good bars and a bar street, the bar street was cool. Although it was not really what we were looking for. So we went to a club, it was called “Muse”… They didn’t even speak English in there, in the middle of freaking Shanghai, and they didn’t speak English!! We went to the bar next to it, I forgot the name. Anyway the music was better, and we could order drinks.. We danced a short while on stage and then we left for another bar, because it was not to crowded. We didn’t find any, well… We found a bar in a back alley with a lot of red light, I think we spent about 45 seconds in there. Which leads us to the final conclusion that the nightlife in Shanghai really sucks. We prefer Xiamen. They don’t speak English in Xiamen, but that’s ok, since we can order our drinks. In Shanghai we couldn’t, it was like. “Do you speak English?” “No” and then they turned away……… Ah yeah, and we never found “Lounge 18″, we asked it at the door of the number 18 building at the bund. The doorman told us that the bar had been closed a while ago, what a pity.

Day 3

“Watch, bag, DVD?”

Another beautiful cold day in Shanghai, not just cold no… Really freaking very cold, to cold to wear just a shirt with long sleeves. Today we planned to go to the fake market for real. We had been there on our second day, but we had no clue about prices and we didn’t have a shopping list of things to buy. So on the third day we returned. The fake market that we went is located on Nanjing Rd. 580, which is a 20 minute walk from the hotel. It’s a large skyscraper with a lot of small shops on the first six floors. Everywhere you go, the only thing you hear is the combination of Watch, Bag and DVD. We accepted the challenge and went for a real fake Louis Vuitton bag, which was a really cool thing. To take a look at a fake Louis Vuitton bag we were taken from store to store. They just opened up the shelves of a stand, were we landed in a backroom, which even had another backroom. This room was then stuffed with fake bags, watches and belts from all big brands. A few shops didn’t want to sell us their fake bags, and most shops didn’t even have the model we were looking for. Anyway, at last we finally found a shop that did have the bag and did want to sell it to us, so we bought one fake bag. After that we went further to get some more stuff. I bought a 512gb usb-stick and a belt.

Before we went to the fake market we also did something else. Next to the Jade Buddha Temple we found a custom tailor in a shop named “Fit Well Fashion”. He could speak English very well and we were still looking for a tie, so we decided to go back in our suits and check for a tie. We asked the owner, Stephen Tung, for advice. He picked out two colors for me I would have never even looked at. For my purple blouse he picked out a pink tie, not just pick no… PINK! More pick than you can ever imagine pink when I tell you that he chose a pink tie. Well I have to admit, it looks damn good.

That's me... Do you believe it?

This tailor was really good at what his job. I also bought a yellowish tie for a white blouse, which I still have to buy…

Back at the hotel we changed clothing, back to the more casual style and after that we went to look for a restaurant. We walked into an alley two blocks from the hotel and there we found a good looking restaurant, were we had a delicious dinner! And it was cheap compared to the average price in Shanghai. I didn’t feel to well this evening, dinner did make it less than it was before dinner. Still I decided to go to bed early and skip the final try to get to a good nightclub.

Day 4

“The final day”

On the last day we took it easy, we got up at around 10 and had breakfast slowly. Partly because we were not really in a hurry and partly because the personal of the bar downstairs was just really very slow. After breakfast we slowly walked over the bund, where we took some pictures and just passed our time before going to the airport. The bund houses 52 buildings, all with a different architectural style. When you look over the river, you can see Pud

This is the view of Pudong from the Bund

At the end of the stretch we found an expensive hotel and since we were looking for a bar we decided to go in. The plan in the building said there should be a bar on the 30st floor, and there was… However the employees took off, so there was no hot chocolate for us. After taking some overview pictures on the outdoor terrace we moved on to find another small cafe, where they did have employees to serve us a nice hot chocolate. We sat down for about half an hour and after that we went back to the hotel at around 1pm. We took a taxi to the airport, where we ate lunch after checking in. That’s where it all ends, a few hours later we landed in Xiamen safely and took a taxi back home.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, most likely I forgot to tell some other stories about Shanghai.. but for now it’s a pretty long post, so.. I’m out. More pictures will be uploaded later this week, for now only the most beautiful ones have been developed.

再见！ Bye bye