First trip - Day 7 - Shanghai

Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 9:11 AM

Subject: Asia - Day 7

Today was mainly a traveling day, Hong Kong to Shanghai.   I had a 9:35 AM flight scheduled, and having to be there 2 hours early, plus padding thing a bit just in case, I was out the door of the hotel and in a taxi to the Kowloon station of the airport express train by 6:00.  Turns out it was a beautiful morning, with the sun just coming up; beautiful lighting on the Hong Kong skyline.  This is a picture I would have loved to have taken being the first clear day since I arrived, but impossible to shoot in a taxi going warp 3.  One note on the drivers in Hong Kong, and on the taxi drivers especially; they will not slow down if you step in their path, they will run you down I am sure.  Anyway, the trip to the train and the ride to the Airport went off without a hitch and I arrived at the airport a full 3 hours before my flight.  After checking bags and such I went looking for breakfast (found two Popeye’s Chickens, we only have one in the twin cities but two in the Hong Kong airport, go figure).  Had a bad eggs benedict and a good cup of coffee, and headed for the gate.

I am flying China Eastern airlines.  This scares me.  Our plane today is an Airbus A300, the first plane that Airbus ever built, in service since 1974.  This one may be the first plane off the line.  The interior is really shabby, white surfaces are yellowed, the carpet is worn, and I am not kidding – there is duct tape on the engine outside my window.  It does not look like it is there to hold anything together, but I am getting more and more nervous about this flight.  The flight was nearly empty, but in typical Chinese fashion, there were many more flight attendants than I have seen on a similar sized aircraft in the states.  While taxiing to the runway, we passed another China Eastern plane, this one was a Boeing 707 which hasn’t been built since the 70’s.  I think it is safe to say that China Eastern does not spend much on their aircraft.  Now I am really nervous.

We took off on time, the plane did make some strange noises, but we made it to Shanghai without incident.  The in-flight meal was Hunan noodles, which I passed on. I did have some tea which was good.  It was pretty cloudy on much of the flight so I couldn’t see much until we got close to the ground on approach to Pu Dong airport.  Pu Dong handles mostly international flights and is on the outskirts of Shanghai.  Shanghai has a population of around 16 million people and is one of, if not the largest industrial center in the world.  I got through customs and immigration, my bags arrived in one piece as well and I found the taxi stand.  The airport has signs in English as well as Chinese, this really helps.  My taxi driver didn’t speak any English.  Fortunately, I had Raymond write the name of the hotel in Mandarin on my reservation confirmation the day before.  I gave this to the driver and we started off.  A little preparation is a good idea here. I had hoped to have the driver plug my cell phone into the lighter socket in the cab, but there was none, so my phone was nearly dead.  I turned it off. 

As we were leaving the airport, I heard a sudden noise that sounded like one of the car doors had been opened.  Looking around I saw the source of the noise on some elevated tracks beside the highway, the MagLev train was going past us at what I am told is over 200 MPH.  MagLev is short for Magnetic Levitation – the train is levitated above the rail by the repulsion of similar magnetic poles, like when you try to push the same pole of two magnets together.  It is an impressive sight.  The highways here are very modern, so are the bridges, and so are the trains. 

I had a picture in my mind of what Shanghai would look like.  I am not sure where my mental picture came from but it was wrong.  What I have seen of Shanghai on the trip from the airport is mile after mile of apartment buildings stretching to the horizon in all directions.  They are mixed old and new, some are only 5 stories, many are over 20,  Most of the older ones have laundry hanging from metal racks that cantilever out from the open windows.  The newer ones look quite nice.  There are factories among them too in all sizes.  There are clusters of office towers scattered as well, 40 or 50 stories frequently.   Its about 25 km from the airport to the hotel and this landscape does not change.  I can see the city center, known as the Bund, in the distance.  We are no where near it. This city is huge. 

The hotel is nice and modern.  There is a clock and there are no condoms in the bathroom.  Things are looking up. 

View from my Shanghai hotel

Eric met me at 3:30 in the hotel lobby.  He is Larry’s boss, the regional sales manager for eastern China.  He is a native of Shanghai and around my age or a little younger.  His English is very good.  We had coffee and discussed the meetings on Friday, then grabbed a taxi to a nearby neighborhood.  The place we have come to is a district of shops and restaurants.  The shopping centers here are nothing like malls in America, they are in urban neighborhoods, have no parking lots, and seem to average 7 or 8 stories high with an open atrium in the center and shops around the periphery.  This district has 5 such buildings in close proximity. In between them are open plazas, one of which has a band playing.  We walk through 2 of the malls which are devoted solely to electronics, store after store of cell phones, MP3 players, lap tops, hard drives, monitors, etc…  The prices are very good overall.  I bought a 1 GB card for my camera for around $35, less than half I would have paid at Best Buy.  The shops were overstaffed but the employees were aggressively trying to get your attention.  It’s hard to believe this is still a Communist country.  I have seen nothing but pure capitalism since I arrived.  We went to a Starbucks, had some more coffee and talked about politics, cooking, and many other topics.  It is nice to speak to someone with good English skills.

Eric asked what kind of food I would like for dinner.  I asked for the local cuisine and we went to a place that has traditional Shanghai food.  Eric explained what all of the dishes were and how Shanghai food is different from the other regional cuisines of China.  Shanghai food is sweet tasting and mostly simple.  We had strips of cucumber cooked with garlic,   small shrimp (peeled this time thankfully), Some Tofu that was prepared differently (brown and firm, much easier to pick up with chopsticks), Some chicken, some pork in a sweet sticky sauce made from sugar, vinegar and soy sauce (my favorite of the evening), and some sliced lotus with sticky white rice.  It was all good and I ate too much.  My chopstick skills have improved immensely this week, I only dropped one thing and it landed on my plate.  We also had some “yellow wine”, a local specialty. It is served warm comes in a fifth bottle with a screw top, and tastes very sweet, I doubt I would order it again.  Also more green tea.  On the cab ride back to the hotel, we got on the subject of foot massages and Eric explained some of the highlights of Chinese medicine, this was really interesting.

By the way, It is nearly 10:00 PM and I haven’t been propositioned yet Today. 

I am really tired this evening and about ready to come home.  One more full day in Shanghai to go and I leave for home the following morning.