May 31, Shanghai: Welcome to a (half) European city

Update: Sorry if there was an incomplete post - I had some problems earlier today.

We arrived into Shanghai at 7:45 AM, right on time. Our night's sleep was fitful, but we made it.

Shanghai is, from the get-go, a much more cultured and in many ways Western city than Beijing seemed. The air quality is a little better, although not so nice (apparently) in recent weeks. The location on the water means that the haze seems worse. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow.
(Update: here's a picture of the haze:)



I'll also be posting in the coming days about the other side of Shanghai - the shantytowns and 1930's USA-esque shanties that are being ripped down at a ridiculous pace to pave the way for high-rises and an ever-growing population.

Here's just one picture from our arrival into one of the new, Western-like developments in the city where we had lunch:

Lunch was xiao long bao - a sort of local dumpling with a broth and meat inside. We ordered the crab, mushroom, pork, and veggie varieties - they were delicious. See below:

After lunch, we walked through the Yu gardens (Jane, if you're reading this... gotta get a picture of Miss Yu in the Yu Gardens), which was a very cool area of shops set around a nice lake. Here's a picture:

We then headed back to the hotel took a badly-needed nap. After our nap, we headed into a more, ahem, pedestrian district to an area where fabric merchants had stalls hawking fabric - which would be turned into suits and slacks. See below:


We bargained our best and settled for relatively good prices - Alex had a suit and 2 slacks, I had a suit and 3 slacks, and Chris got 2 suits - all for a total of 2750 yuan - about 325 dollars for 5 custom-tailored suits and 5 pairs of slacks. We're picking them up here in Shanghai on our last day - Sunday - so Sunday's post will tell the story.

To recover from not sleeping well on the train, we then headed out to dinner and a massage. The 90-minute massage was 100 yuan (13 bucks). What a deal.

I saved talking about dinner for last because it was one of the top 5 meals I have ever had. Our restaurant was called Hazara, and it serves world-class Indian food for reasonable prices on a US scale (very expensive in China). I balked at spending 35 dollars on a meal in China, but Chris guarenteed the quality - and could not have been more right. MY meal of chicken korma, a cucumber-youghurt dip, and garlic bread was, indeed, the best Indian food I've ever had. I ate it so quickly that I forgot to take a picture, and settled for a shot of Alex's chicken tandori instead:

After the massage it was already 1:40 AM, so we headed to bed for the next day of adventures.

More soon!

Mike