May 2011 - Day 3 - Stan nearly finds a wife

May 2011 – Day 3

I am traveling with a coworker this trip, Stan, an engineer who worked for a time in Hong Kong a few years back.  Stan arrived at the hotel from the airport hungry and not a bit tired – I usually arrive wired myself, so we ventured out to an expat bar/restaurant  I remembered from a previous trip; a fairly short taxi ride from the hotel.  It was around midnight when we arrived at the place, Malone’s, a very American style pub with good food and beer choices – Murphy’s Stout on tap – the best stout there is – can’t even find that on tap at home.  I was surprised to find the place packed to capacity with a live band and the kitchen long since closed for the night.  We nonetheless enjoyed a few beers and then wandered the neighborhood looking for food options; a restaurant, street food, whatever.  No luck.  We decided another beer would do instead and grabbed a table in an open air place called the “Blue Sky Bar” – Four of the “bar girls” pounced at once and Stan seemed to really enjoy the attention – I mean seriously – check out the smile on his face.  Stan is single by the way – It’s probably a good thing I got him out of there after one round – he might have left married.

We arrived back at the hotel around 2:00 AM and found a late-night diner type place nearby where Stan ordered some chicken and scallop fried rice. While waiting for his order to come up a customer, a Chinese boy who looked to be in his late teens walked past wearing those ridiculous looking pants with the crotch down around the knees and the elastic band of his underwear exposed – bad fashion ideas are global too I suppose.  After he passed, one of the waiters walked by pretending to have his pants down around his knees mocking the kid.  It was pretty funny – we all laughed

Sunday my Chinese friend Larry and his daughter took us to lunch at a hotpot place and drove us around for a bit to do some sightseeing.  We stopped near the Huang Pu River near the center of town and walked along the Bund – one of the more famous spots in Shanghai.  This is the neighborhood that housed most of the expat communities prior to WWII and many of the buildings look decidedly western.  Across the river from the Bund lies the Pu Dong district which includes most of Shanghai’s larger buildings.  Below is the view of Pu Dong and the Bund



The Bund



Pu Dong



Both of us ran out of steam by early evening and we called it a night around 9:00 PM.  The jet lag never hits me right away, but after 48 hours in China, I am really starting to drag.  Nonetheless, I suspect I will be wide awake in the middle of the night

Tomorrow we drive to Suzhou where I give a presentation to my customer’s Southeast Asian distributors