上海灘 (Part I)

Yup... I'm back from Shanghai... away from the car horning and traffic assistant whistling on the messy Shanghai roads...

Many ups and downs in just that one week there... and here my story goes...

25th Oct (Wed)

Arrived at the airport really early to catch the morning flight to Shanghai with my colleague K. Pretty excited coz it's my first business trip since I joined the company... Since K's taking the airport express, she'll be checking in at the train station, so we agreed to meet at the McDonald's at airport after check-in for breakfast. Well, due to some miscomm, I thought Mac was after the custom checkpoint so I went in first. First boo boo of the day, but little did I know there were more to come. Apparently K got some trouble going thru the immigration, and all I got from her was a phone call saying that she can't join me.

So I board the plane alone, not quite knowing what will happen when I arrive in Shanghai. Not really scared, but was a little worried if I can finish the work, and too coz I didn't really know what happened. Was also angry at myself for teasing K the other day abt her visa, and jokingly say that she better board the plane or else I'll die in Shanghai. Jinx.

Well thank God when I arrived in Shanghai, I called back to HK office and was told that B will be flying in the next day to help me with this job. What a relief.

Quickly checked in at the hotel and before checking out the conference venue. My hotel room is pretty big... got enough space to jump around... haha...


The place where the conference is held is a pretty huge place, consisting of a hotel, a convention centre and an extension of the convention centre across the road.

Was only abt 4 plus when I'm done... so decided to venture out to the town area to take a look. Decided to go the local way and take the metro to 南京路. Only costed me RMB4! And guess what's the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the 人民廣場 station?

Raffles City... under Capitaland... Am I in Singapore or what?

More signs of Singaporean invasion inside the mall...

Next to Raffles City is one of the very few churches around Shanghai, called 沐恩堂.

Further down the road is 上海第一百貨 and 新世界城.

Not very attracted by the malls but I thought the scene outside 新世界城 was interesting. In the evening, there's a live band that play rather retro numbers and the old couples will dance to the music right there on the street. Cool!

Went on to walk walk at 南京路步行街.

It's a shopping street with many shops, including a few big ones that sell local food stuff such as 泰康 and 上海第一食品. Further down is this hotel called 永安, a very old building with alot of lights. Looks really pretty at night.

Was feeling hungry so went to the nearby small alley to try out 蔡記生煎 which is recommended by my travel guide. True enough, it's really popular and there was a long queue when I arrived.

The 生煎包 there is really cheap... only RMB2 for 4... and really yummy...

The top part of the skin is soft and thin while the bottom is thicker and crispy. And the best part is that the stuffing is really really juicy!

Took the metro back but figured that it would be abit too dark to walk back from the metro station to my hotel, so I alighted at 徐家滙 station instead to take a cab back. There are alot of big shopping malls at 徐家滙 too, including this one that's called 美羅城, which looks like a giant glass ball from outside.

Didn't really get to shop there much coz I was pretty tired by then. And it'd be a long day of work at the conference venue the next day.