I try to do one Formula 1 trip a year and so this year I chose Shanghai as my destination and put it out to friends that I was going... eventually 5 others joined me and so we set off to the incredible city of Shanghai.
We stayed at the Pacific Hotel across from the People's Park, highly recommended for location, service and price.
During the day we just walked around and explored, at night we chose great restaurants or stumbled upon local Shanghainese spots that looked busy and were fantastic.
We explored tourist areas, back streets, local favourites and fantastic neighbourhoods such as the French Concession.
A big thank you to Andrew, aka Gaillo, for giving us some tips and meeting us night 2 at Shanghai Brewery. We ended up at this wicked underground bunker bar, although I don't recall much of that...
People in the city were polite, helpful when needed and far more open than we initially would have thought.
Xiantiandi, Yu Gardens, an expat street with tons of bars/patios, fancy outdoor remade areas with awesome people watching and spectacular public parks.
Formula 1 was fun, although the weather kinda sucked... but an experience all to its own.
Pudong was surreal at times, but very tower in the park bland. The 3 standout towers along with the Pearl were simply incredible though. We went to the 100th floor observatory in the WFC and had the clouds clear just in time to get some great vistas... along with the coolest bottle cap opener in the world.
The Bund was particularly great, especially a couple of cocktails at the Long Bar at the Waldorf. Great dinning at Godfellas, fun cocktail bars and an amazing club 'Mint' on the top of an office tower complete with a shark tank. My favourite place to have a few was a neat little bar called Arcade where they had a wicked atmosphere, DJ and giant screen with an arcade machine loaded with about 1000 games from the 80s and 90s. The last night we hit up M2 or Muse 2 which was quite the party and sendoff.
All of us left the city with a great respect for it and yearning to get the hell back there as soon as we can for 9 days was simply not enough for that monster.
Wo ai ni Shanghai.
Enjoy!
Awaiting our plane in Vancouver after a short hop over from Edmonton... already 1 man down
Pudong Int'l
MAGLEV!!!
Incredible how many of these 'scenes' there were...
First views of the beasts
8mins, 30km, 430km/h
The subway system was easy to navigate, cheap as hell and clean.
View from our hotel entrance towards the People's Park
Xiao Long Bao of holy goodness - We ate here A LOT
Our little hotel with a larger spaceship behind it.
Nanjing Road East, tourist hell.
Darth Vader tower
Hey Milap, how much for that shoeshine again?
Very caring
Operable windows on a high-rise, unpossible.
Notice the hanging gardens along the elevated freeways...cool
Sadly, much of the Shinkumen traditional housing is being lost due to 'progress'
Peppers anyone?
More hanging gardens
Canadians like anything with 'snow' in it
Fog, not smog
Early morning badminton, seniors dancing and tai chi...
You bet we do
Xiantiandi was fascinating... stores with bars and living above, hidden rooftop patios, alleyways, anything and everything
Kommune for breaky
hmmm
Scramble! China's Shibuya?
Multi-use sidewalks!
Stunning
Why so happy JC? Beer time?
Dubai, NYC, Paris, HK, it is all there
Finally got me my bottle cap opener... only 350RMB
High on beer
I like the blue ones myself
Traffic was not too insane, electric scooters of death = always be aware, but everything just worked. Traffic melded and flowed.
Zaijian
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