Waking up just in time to check out the hotel breakfast we enjoyed the tunes of Johnny Cash together with a fair amount of bacon, omelette and juice. Ulf, Laura and me broke off the itinerary by skipping lunch and instead strolled down to the waterfront (Pu-long river). Lots of nice views and stalls who had printed prices combined with pleasant weather made a few hours easily pass by. A bartered for a really nice silver scarf and ended up paying 2 €.

We got some omelette/pancake thing from a street vendor who made an argument about us paying too much, that’s a nice change compared to the lot of Beijing sellers who try to rip you off whenever possible. In total I paid little more than 1 € for my lunch, quite nice. More photos, a random bus ride and even more walking we ended up at the hotel just in time to prepare for cocktails and dinner.

First we were off to Tara’s lounge which had a really nice atmosphere for some cocktails, after that we were off to a japanese restaurant called Shintori. This was a minimalist place with awesome bathrooms, spacious and concrete interior design. I had the largest sashimi and this proved to be my best meal so far in China. The tuna was close to perfect, and the others were also very pleased with their courses. The place had a club section just around the corner so we headed there as well.

The first thing about this club was the entrance, after walking up a bunch of stairs you had nine illuminated holes in a wall. We thought we were at the wrong place but Mathias instructed us to check out the holes. After inserting hands in one the holes a door slided open to the right, cool. Except that the door revealed a wall with the text ‘Gotcha’, another hole (or sequence?) opened the real door to the club though. Inside it was again concrete, space and minimalist all over. Sweet music but again the bathrooms took the price.

At the restaurant the guys stall was simply glass stands where you looked out to a zen garden and peed on the glass wall, awesome indeed. The bathrooms at the club followed the same fashion as the entrance to the club; there were two corridors with three doors each and no signs of male/female or that this actually was bathrooms. Trying to pull the knobs didn’t open the doors, neither pushing them. The trick was to push the other side of the door (that is opposite to the knob) and the door opened. This didn’t give much confidence though since the room was very dark, when entering no lights appeared until you locked the door. Awesome. Of course there were speakers that played the nice jazz/electronic music in the bathroom as well.

It’s interesting that the coolest and best place so far in China has been a japanese one, but we have a few more candidates on the list to try out. Back at the hotel for some reason me and Ulf decided to try jumping over the beds with both feet together simultaneously. Laura was happy to document this contemporary expressionistic art form which seemed like a good idea at the moment. I’m sure our neighbors loved it.

After a good two hour delay of our flight we finally arrived at Pu-Long airport. The breeze of fresh air, clear sky (not blue but still) and actual bushes and green grass made a good impression. Topped off with a much nicer airport and about 10 degrees warmer it seemed I would like Shanghai more than Beijing.

While driven to our hotel Laura actually started to film how the guy was switching lanes. It looked like a video game, I wouldn’t call it unsafe but he did drove pass an ambulance with flashing lights on the inside. In Beijing everyone drives like crazy but it’s mostly fender bender accidents since the speeds are so low. So far it seems that in Shanghai the tempo is a bit higher.

When we arrived at our hotel it looked very promising, a guy called Mathias has set everything up including getting us rooms for a very nice price. We had e.g. bathtubs in the room and a nice flat screen TV for 35 € per double. Like this wasn’t enough he has compiled a detailed itinerary for the ~20 people that will be attending. Complete with addresses, numbers and names it looks awesome. Mathias does groups of tourist now and then and said that we would pull some strings for my traveling in Tibet, sa-weet.

When strolling to the restaurant we were having lunch at I was fascinated by the sights in Shanghai. Really nice skyline, parks and people seem friendlier and happier here.
Today we were going to a rather posh place called Laris for dinner (after some cocktails at another place) so it was time to dress up. The place was nice indeed, the interior was marble all over, linen cloth at the bathroom and needless to say the view was awesome. After enjoying our courses we did the mistake of trying to sort out the bill. Since Helen doesn’t drink alcohol it seemed rather fair, after a good half hour we decided that in the future the rest would split after deducting her bill.

We moved on to a club called Glamour for more drinks but three different clubs doesn’t count as a night so we were off to find this newly opened club Mathias had heard about. We found the club but getting there was harder. It seemed like a good idea at the moment to run the escalators in the wrong direction and the sight of Ulf running with Tara heaved over his shoulder and struggling to reach the last step while Alex almost felling over in front was awesome. I think that someone managed to catch it on their camera, I sure hope so.

When we finally got back to the hotel I asked for internet access and they told me that they would send up a guy with a cable to my room right away. Which meant that my room now is considered to be the internet cafe for the six of us.

I started my day by redeeming my sins at the dentist, Laura joined and studied the local dentist. According to her he was somewhat sloppy regarding the check-up and more focused in straightening my teeth (not yet, thanks for the compliment though). It was about half the swedish price though, the X-rays revealed that there was more work to do though. Laura recommended me to do that in Sweden though, I already long for that bill.

After being such a good boy I decided to treat myself with a new lense for my camera. I bought a Sigma 18-200 OS and Ulf didn’t want to look cheap so bought one for his Nikon as well. We strolled around playing with our lenses and ended up on a chinese McDonald’s to see if they had any chinese menus. Which of course they did, tasted better and was about 1.5 € each, still I managed to get > 75 % of my daily recommended dosage of fat and a fair amount of sugar as well so I guess it’s same same.

We also took the opportunity to check out the subway system. It was quite fast and convenient (although Tokyo is still number one) but it was only five lines so I can see why people prefer the cheap taxis. We found the Llama Temple but it had too much commercial look of it so we left for home. Alex father Ray and his wife Florence had invited us for thanksgiving dinner so we decided to get back to the hostel.

My first thanksgiving dinner ever was nice, good food and nice discussions. We decided to get to bed rather early though as Henry would drive usto the airport at 06 and we needed to pack and check-out before that.