I'm now in Hong Kong after a very long day. Billings was intent on ensuring I saw the best of what Shanghai had to offer - from what I can gather its predominantly night life. We didn't catch the sunrise the second time around but I only managed an hour's sleep before I had to get out to the airport which made me quite slow/gross today. My final take on Shanghai is it's China lite. Still fully chinese and communist, but the people there sort of pretend it's not making it a fun place, and more of a look into China's future I think. We started the night at the DVD store where I absolutely went to town on illegal pirated DVD's at $2 a pop. Then onward to the Bund for some city views before a hot pot dinner (overrated) and a Italian birthday party (party was lame, Italian girls - the best). As previously mentioned, Tom's insistence upon me having a good viw of the Shanghai scene brought us to a Euro trash club back in the Bund overlooking the river and skyline which was cool. The crowd was absolutely bizarre. People in Shanghai, I noticed, have no acknowledgement of their age and what they should be doing in life as old men/women. At a supposedly cool club you had a number of old men, all likely out to poach young sad asian girls, and an inexplicable crew of mom aged women also. They have no exclusivity in these places, which at first sounds nice, but in practice is terrible when you're going out looking for a good crowd to run with. Anyhow, the night ended with a Hong Kong girl making pathetic advances at me and when I explained to her my flight was in about 3 hours and even if it wasn't, I wasn't going anywhere with her she became so freakily upset that I got scared and we left the club immediately... the best of Shanghai by far is in the slideshow below in the park where parents post descriptions of their children on trees and hundreds of Shanghanese parents go for matchmaking off these ads, it was out of this world.
And just the full Shanghai slideshow here:
Onward to HK, which is a fantastic city. Mind you I've only seen it in this sleep deprived haze I've been in all day, but it just seems awesome. Like a combination of LA, SF and NY - with mtns in the city on an island with an incredible harbor and night life. One thing worth noting also is the clear distinction you can tell in just the look of northern vs. southern chinese. I'm hoping to be more effective touring around tomorrow, though I did make it over to Kowloon today and set myself up with some new shirts. Also looking forward to catching up with some of the Americans I know here tomorrow on Buddha Day, a HK national holiday celebrating the chubby guy's birthday. By the way, HK doesn't censor my internet the same way the mainland and actual China did, which is nice of them.
Some pics of the skyline and some other random stuff here:
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