(Sweet Taro Pies…)
Greetings from the business centre of the Yangtze Hotel in downtown Shanghai—I chose not to publish the specifics of where the missus and I were staying in case someone tried to commandeer our prepaid room.
The hotel so far has been great, but the one feature I can’t comment on in the in-room internet… And that’s because the ethernet card on my frickin’ laptop doesn’t work! I had no less than three hotel staff members helping me out, culminating with someone who looked like guy who wired the entire hotel himself. He had the clever idea of trying to connect from another empty room, and confirmed that it was my laptop, not the hotel’s built-in network, that was at fault.
That means you’ll have to put up with the weird apostrophe and dot dot dot punctuation on this computer’s chinese keyboard (or maybe that’s just me?) and I won’t be able to post any photos until I get back home. But I will have more time to take them. Speaking of which…
After a pretty crappy flight on a beat-up Boeing 763 we landed in Shanghai and hopped on board the Maglev train. It was less than a twenty-minute ride but we reached a top speed of about 430 km/hour—and I do have photo proof!
We then transferred to the subway line which was a little hairy; we managed to beat the afternoon rush hour but still pissed off the people around us with our heavy bags. Once at People’s Square we took a quick cab ride to our hotel where we immediately collapsed for a four-hour emergency nap.
By the time we were able to get back up and make ourselves presentable it was almost midnight, and our only choice for dinner was the 24-hour McDonald’s on Nanjing Road. They had one local fast food delicacy—sweet taro pies—that made our meal a bit more palatable.
This morning we gobbled up our free western-style breakfast in the hotel restaurant, then explored the many malls and department stores surrounding us. In order:
- Raffles City
- Shanghai No. 1 Department Store
- New World Mall
This afternoon, we’re off to the Bund!
Andrew Currie 
One response to “Shanghai: Day One”
Was just browsing through, but just wanted to note…
1) fido’s taken the hiptop2 off the website. that may be a sign of the imminent release of the hiptop3.
2) flights from toronto to asia frequently have refueling stops in either vancouver or anchorage. cathay has it on their “non-stop” from T.O to Hong Kong. AC has newer planes on the same route so they can do non-stop though..