City lights from Adrian's place



Ferry crossing the river



Day tour group



Evening dinner drinks and club crew



People's square



Tallest buildings in the city



Themed restaurant around toilets



Tight market streets featuring overhead power







Funky market sq



Markets



Contrast busy market and city scape







Zig Zag bridge over lake



M2 night club with Crazy Karoke and dancers

Shanghai 72

Sun 09 Jun 2013
The recently introduced transit visa for China made it possible for me to skip to see a mate there recently. The gotcha, is that you need to "transit". Even though I was flying with a different airline for the return leg, I was coming back to KL, so I was not going to be able to board the plan. Problem solved with a $230 US spare flight to another destination on the spur. Expensive lesson, but at least I still made it to Shanghai.

The transit visa creates a small fuss for immigration, but a couple of extra stamps and ticket inspection and your in.

Lucky will be you if a friend is waiting at the airport for you while having already met someone in the immigration queue for the shared taxi ride costing about US$25 to town... at break neck speed. - The Taxi drivers of Shanghai are loose by any terms and the road relatively unclogged - so they get on with the job.

Days filled with sightseeing in the big city - its thriving! and everywhere you go, the city is bubbling away. Its surprisingly western, and the traditional markets are now quite commercial, right down to the restaurant themed around toilets and the like....

Elsewhere, the night time is throbbing night club bars complete with Lambo's park at the curb outside, and finish the night at the Salsa bar.

In the day you might be lucky to find the top of the skyline - the pollution was at high levels during my stay and thus the city's tallest buildings were unseen as the photo shows... given that problem... what's the point?  Amongst the travels we ended up at "Flair", a bar 58 floors above the city ... and absolutely nothing to see. The "Pea Soup Smog" meant that you had to imagine the amazing cityscape that should be visible.

... and how about the business nature - the city is bejeweled and dripping with money. One contact in the boat broking business said that a recent showing of a super super yacht was retorted by the wealthy with two questions.

1. Does it have a Karoke room?
2. Is there a bigger boat available?

... and that pretty much sums up the modern Shanghai...