Shanghai.....The Holiday

I arrived in Shanghai on Tuesday 10th October. My cousin Gordon (and his driver!) picked me up from the airport which was about an hour from his apartment. But an hour in v.nice car with DVD players and a driver to take you is not so bad!
By the time I got to his apartment it was quite late but I was so excited I managed to stay up and chat with Gordon and Heiwan till the early hours.
So first I am going to tell you about the apartment.....WOW! Gordon lives in a serviced apartment in one of the main shopping areas, Puxi. His apartment was on the top floor and had amazing balcony views of Shanghai. They have swimming pool, gym, sauna, steam room, relaxation room with massage chairs, daily yoga lessons, virtual golf, reading room with Vogue!, huge screen TV room, a pool room and a bar.....so my first thoughts were "when will I have time to see Shanghai with all of this to entertain me"!



Below the apartment there was 2 Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Warner Bros Cinema, Hagen Daz, Shopping centre with (to name a few) Diesel, Boss, Fornarina, Miss Sixty, Clinique, French Connection, La Coste, DKNY.......and lots lots more. There is also a supermarket in the basement....so you see what I mean as no time to see the rest of Shanghai! I think this is the point when I realize how much living in the mountains is affecting me when I get excited by seeing shops that I see 10 times a day in London!

Wednesday.....
I started the day by taking advantage of an on site gym and massage chairs.
Gordon had to work as our grandparents had stayed with him for the previous two weeks so he had already taken time off....but that was fine because Heiwan was my tour guide (which I think she does very well!) . The first stop was the fabric market where you can pretty much order any clothes made to measure from shirts and suits to coats and dresses. I took a picture of a coat from a magazine, selected the fabric and had it made to pick up at the end of the holiday. I also bought some very cheap, nice pashmina scarves (well its cold in Nagano now!) and jewelry.
With all that shopping and exercise we were feeling hungry so went to a gorgeous restaurant on the river with a great view of the Pearl Tower. It was in the same place as the Evian Spa - it looked sooo nice in the spa but being on a budget I couldn't afford a treatment this time....My next visit to Shanghai though will definitely involve some pampering!

After lunch we had a walk along the river and watched some dancers. Next was some culture in the form of the Shanghai History Museum. It was really interesting to see how much and how quickly Shanghai has developed, and also the presence and affect that the west has had in Shanghai dating back to the early 21-C.
With some cultural things done we headed to a supermarket - its one of the places I always find interesting when I visit another country, I think you can get a feel for the way of life through food....and also see some very strange things! I got to buy Mangoes which I cannot find in Japan so I was happy!

We went and met Gordon after work and headed to a Thai restaurant for dinner....very nice food and a beautiful restaurant. ....with English menus - happy days!


Thursday....
Again started the day using the gym, steam room and massage chair (god, I could so happily be a house wife!) and then headed to the famous Yuyuan gardens. It was really beautiful and has been persevered really well. After all the walking we went to a Tea House....for some tea. We had flower tea which is really pretty to look at and tastes good too - always a bonus! They put the dried bud in a glass tea pot and it slowly expands to the full flower....so clever! The tea was served with a strange selection of nibbles....no, no jam and scones Im afraid......cubes of tofu, pickled quail eggs, some kind of salted dried fruit and a green tea cake.....oishii no?!








The super brand mall was next.....fake everything. Golf clubs, clothes, shoes, trainers, North Face anything, LV, Gucci, Prada, Channel, Balenciaga, Chloe, Coach........Bags Bags Bags. So with some dodging of the police and alot of haggling, a couple of very nice genuine, huh huh, bags were purchased.

Next stop was the "City Store" to get some things for dinner....this one goes out to my fellow Nagano-ites....You can buy every English food you could desire there....oh yes, it was good! Only you will understand my excitement over Baxters Vegetable Soup and Horlicks.....the simple things.
Home was the last stop and Heiwan cooked dinner and I got to spend some time with Gordon catching up on the developments of his job so far in Shanghai. Im not going to say exactly what he is doing as it involves new product development and this is the world wide web...but with my lateset desire to work in the food industry it was really interesting to see how things take shape.

Friday..........
Again being super keen I started the day with a visit to the gym and sauna but cut out the massage chair as we had to head off early to go to the Jade Buddha temple. I know, I know - I live in the land o temples but I still wanted to go. It was a very different experience as lots of people were praying and worshipping. This involved lighting incense and bowing with it in front of the gods so the temple smelled lovely! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the main part with the Buddha which was more extravagant.






Then we headed to an antique market, antique being a very loosely used word, and I bought a nice poster for my apartment. Its a good job there is a luggage limit or I would have bought so many trinkets home! At the opposite side of the antique market was the pet market - I think this was the best place I went to in Shanghai...Partly due to the giggling at the expense of Heiwan as we walked through very narrow rows of stalls selling unrecognisable bugs that were squirming and dropping on the floor, grasshoppers in all shapes and sizes that they train to fight, cats, dogs, pigs, birds.......some of them were so cute but I felt sorry for them being caged up in tiny little cages.





We headed back to the apartment and had Baxters Soup for lunch!!! Then Heiwan went to meet her sister and I got ready to go and meet the GAA people in Pudong.

I got to the hotel quite early and as the lads were training and having an early night (v.serious) I went into town to the Blue Frog bar with the girls for a drink, and as they headed off for the tournament draw, I sneeked off to meet Gordon, Heiwan and her sister for dinner in a Shanghainese restaurant - my first chinese meal since I arrived!


We left there and went to a glass museum/bar, that was very swanky. They served really good cocktails and we sat outside overlooking a street of nice bars and clubs and next to Jackie Chans apartment. The bar itself was probably one of the nicest I have been to.

After a crazy experience with a taxi that involved driving on the path (getting in a car in China is life endangering stuff) we went home as the next day I had an ultra early start to be back in Pudong for the kick off for the Asian Gaelic Games 2006....