As you know I landed in Hong Kong Last week but I have been hesitating to write about Shanghai because by the time I left I had a really negative view of the city. I wanted to take the time to sort things out in my brain so that I didn’t give an overly negative view of the city. I am glad I decided to wait  because I think all the negative things that I can think of related to Shanghai occurred at the World Expo. The World Expo 2010 was really not that great. But after some reflection I have decided that Shanghai is actually a very nice city.

When we got off of our painful 12 hour train ride we were SO tired. The train from Beijing to Shanghai drops off at the Shanghai Rail Station but our hotel, Lotel Hotel, was located at the Shanghai South Rail station. Instead of taking a taxi straight there we decided to take the subway from Shanghai station down to Shanghai South Rail station. Big mistake. We were already feeling quite grumpy from the annoying train ride and then it became magnified by the struggle on the subway with 2 backpacks each. So by the time we got to the south rail station we were in pretty bad shape.

Lotel Hotel is actually a 7 to ten minute walk from the rail station but you can’t actually see it unless you go out onto Humin street and head east towards OLD Humin Street. As soon as you get to Old Humin Street you will see it in the distance to the north. Not knowing this we were milling around trying to figure out how to get there. The really annoying thing is that there are these guys on scooters riding around trying to get you to pay them to take you places on their scooter. We weren’t having that. We started to walk, when I saw Humin Street I said that we should go onto that road but then we thought that we could end up searching for the hotel forever. Searching for a long period of time would have been super annoying, so we opted for a taxi. I hailed a taxi and the douche said 50 Yuan. We didn’t know how far it was so we agreed.

We were in that taxi for 3 minutes, and two minutes was spent waiting for a red light. that taxi ride probably should have been 12-15 yuan max. Make sure you ask for a meter when you get into a taxi. We were to flustered to think about it or even care so we got ripped off.

Lotel Hotel is VERY VERY nice. I would recommend that you stay there if you are trying to choose a place to stay. It was great, clean, and VERY close to the subway stop.

Anyways enough about the hotel. After that ordeal we went to sleep. The next day we went to the Bund. The Bund is just Shanghai, on one side of the river is a modern skyline with skyscrapers and a big tower. On the other side is old European looking architecture. Here are some pictures!

We ate at the Seagull on the Bund. If you sit outside it has a nice view of both sides of the Bund. The view is nice but the food was not very good. It is one of those hotel/restaurant places. This is what the place looks like.

If you want to sit, relax and see the bund this restaurant is a good place to go. Just don’t go there expecting good food. Here is their website (http://www.seagull-hotel.com/index/index_en.asp).

The Bund was cool. We couldn’t find a good place to eat there. But we did get to put our fingers on the pulse of the city so to speak. The next day we went to the world expo… GAH!

The World Expo was the source of all of my negative feelings towards Shanghai. It was BAD and you didn’t really get much reward for your suffering. The lines were LONG and for the most part nothing in the pavilions was worth the wait. We got to see the Caribbean Communities, Peru, Germany, Spain, Indian, and Japan Pavilions. Out of all of these the only one that was worthwhile was the Japan Pavilion. Japan was the last country pavilion we visited and after that we didn’t want to see anything more. Because how can you top a friggin robot playing a violin? You can’t!

We saw that! LIVE! and the Panasonic Life Screen was also amazing. We waited in line for FOUR hours to see it. WORTH IT! Too bad the expo is over otherwise I would tell everyone to just go to the Japan Pavilion because the show they put on was seriously Bad Ass.

The other pavilions were not worth the time spent waiting. Germany was so boring I don’t even remember what it was about, Spain had some kind of gargantuan baby and what looked like an X-ray of Jesus on the cross, The Caribbean Communities Pavilion didn’t even have any Caribbean food! So yeah.

But the most frustrating part of the pavilion was the lines. We spent probably 30 hours at the Expo over 3 days and like, I dunno, 20 of those hours was spent waiting in line with the other ten split between walking around, eating, and seeing stuff.

Also the really annoying thing about the lines, and this is true of Beijing as well, the people there seem to have no patience for queuing combined with the lack of the concept of personal space in the culture. So basically the lines were chaos. In Beijing it was just people basically not waiting in line and cutting in front of people. At the expo, which may not be representative of Shanghai on the whole, was a combination of cutting and CONSTANT jostling that really started to get on my nerves. But I really had to just concentrate and understand that the culture is different.

That is one thing that you always have to remember when you are traveling all over the place. Different places do things in different ways. Those different ways can be VERY annoying to outsiders but as the saying goes, When in Rome…

Here are some pictures from the World Expo

That last one is the China Pavilion. We had planned to go there on the last day, but after seeing a robot playing the violin we just did not give a crap about seeing any other country pavilions.

On the last day we just went in and ate across the river from all the country pavilions, went to look at some city pavilions and some special projects and that was that.

So yeah, I think Shanghai was a good experience. Now I know what to expect if I go to a large event there in the future.

Now I know and knowing is half the battle!