Back to the amazing city of Shanghai

What is it with China? As amazing as this country has turned out to be (and that’s pretty damn amazing, let’s be clear), there are some old, almost Kafka-esque habits that die hard and are driving me c-c-c-crazy. Like you can’t take pictures… anywhere. I’m not just talking about “please don’t take flash pictures of our priceless heritage relics in the form of paintings” … I get that. I’m talking about being yelled at for taking pictures in all of the following venues: the residence of a Chinese hero from the outside, a new major architecture project (again from the outside; a place that should be screaming for publicity), a restaurant, a store where we wanted to take pictures of something we were considering buying… you get the idea. Drives me wacky.

Anyway, had to get that off my chest. Now back to the amazing city of Shanghai.

I left you last as we were on our way to an acrobatic show with our new friends, Linda and Wuan. It was quite a show. Imagine people doing things that make you applaud in awe recoil in disgust at the same time. I mean, seriously, are bodies meant to do that? I don’t think so. But the fact that they can spin about 20 plates at a time while walking across other folks heads is pretty impressive.


We followed that up with dinner at a crazy “hot pot” restaurant (yes, it is literally a pot of hot stuff (both in temperature and spice level) that you throw things in to cook): think “fondue” but with way less 1970s décor. The restaurant was on the 7th floor of an ugly building. We never would have found it and never would have been able to order if it weren’t for Linda and Wuan. We ate like kings and drank big bottles of local beer. Yummm….



Our last day in Shanghai was a marathon. Really felt like we short-changed this city by only giving it 3 days, so we took the last day very seriously… too seriously, perhaps, as we collapsed in exhaustion at 10 PM. Here’s a run-down:

• We started at the most complete “classical Chinese gardens” in the country, Yu Yuan, which we decided reminded us of the temples in Beijing (all things imperial are starting to run together here) … so we were in and out in about 20 minutes. At this point, I again start to wonder if I’m there’s a cultural desert in my soul.
  
  (yep, looks like imperial architecture to me...)
  
• We then ran to the other side of the Huang Pu River to get a view from the tallest building in Shanghai. Which has a glass-bottomed observatory on the 100th floor. Amazing views combined with a teeeeeny bit of vertigo.
• Had a coffee in a beautiful old café deep in an office building on the Bund (yes, you can get to the buildings if you risk your life to cross a construction area). (It was shortly after this that I got yelled at for taking photos of a tile mural on the floor of a bank lobby … clearly a risk for state security)
• Jumped in a taxi to visit Shanghai’s self-proclaimed “cultural street.” Note to self: may not be good idea to take Chinese government at their word about what is and what is not a cultural street. This one was quite dull and even our key destination, the famous film café – where you can watch old B&W movies from Shanghai and sit on big red velvet couches, was basically closed as it was being used for a model shoot. Sounds sexy as I write it down. But it wasn’t. It just meant that there was no where to sit and no one wanted to serve us non-models a drink.
• So we headed back downtown to the People’s Square (which indeed did have a lot of people in it) and the fantastic Museum of Urban Planning, where they had an enormous model of what Shanghai will look like in 2020. Let me just say this: it’s enormous. We have nothing that even comes close in the US or Europe. And this is just one of their many, many major cities.
  
• To end our Shanghai experience we had reservations at a famous restaurant, Fu 1088, in an old mansion in the French Concession (we can walk from our hotel). Every table has its own room, we were told. We imagined we’d be dining in the old library, with candlelight and silk wallpaper. How romantic, we thought. Well, as just about everything in China thus far, it was different than we had imagined. Not worse, just different. Yes, we were alone in a room. But the room was huge and it was between the reception and the kitchen, so folks were walking through it constantly and the noise and smells from the kitchen filled it. The lights were bright and there were no candles to be seen. At first, we both winced a bit at it all. But then our own personal piano player (yep, just him, us and the kitchen staff) started to play - he was amazing – and we fell into the mood. We drank a bottle of wine from their extensive wine list (for China that means more than 2 bottles, 1 red and 1 white) and said goodbye to Shanghai.