What's all this then?

What? What's a blog?

The past few months have not been without incident, and although that's no excuse for my beyond-sporadic updates, I feel that enough time and events have passed to merit another try at this whole "writing" thing.

First and foremost was March's trip to the wonderful city of Shanghai, in China. I went with three of my coworkers: Matt, Ryan and Alex. After touching down at the airport, we got to ride the bullet train, which was appropriately excellent.
This bad boy got up to 304 km/h while we were on it! And that wasn't even its top speed!


We spent the first few nights of the trip staying at the Blue Mountain hostel in a relatively quiet neighborhood of Shanghai. Or at least, it would have been quiet, had it not been...


Chinese New Year's! It sounded like a war zone outside the hostel every night we were in Shanghai. We bought a bunch of fireworks from a cart on the corner of the street and proceeded to go nuts, nearly blowing up a taxi in the process. Then, we took a cab (even cheaper than Korea!) to the French Concession and had dinner at 1001 Arabian Nights, a tasty if expensive themed restaurant/hookah bar. We then went to a bar where I beat the hostesses in foosball.

Waking up the next day, we made a beeline for what our guidebook promised had some of the best breakfast in Shanghai. As you can see, I was not disappointed:
That is powdered sugar from my french toast. POWDERED SUGAR. Anyway, the breakfast was stellar and since we were in the French Concession anyway we decided to take a little stroll which turned up a few surprises. First off was this blast from my past:
The Shanghai Conservatory of music! In 2002, I and my fellow members of the Eastview High School Band program played a very memorable exchange concert here during which our band and the conservatory's orchestra had unwittingly prepared the same Gershwin piece.

We continued strolling through the FC, until we hit the district's downtown shopping area. In front of a statue of the emperor, I was pulled into a family photo by this very enthusiastic dad, who literally shouldered his kids out of the way to stand next to me:

And we're back! Upon walking through the busier part of the French Concession, we came out the other side at beautiful Fuxing Park. In this park, there were a couple of fine gentlemen:
There was also a highly-illegal gambling game going on in the corner, but our attempts to photograph it were met with angry Mandarin and shooing motions.
Here's the game, over in the corner there. Sketchy! Fuxing Park was very beautiful and quite large, and home to a number of surprising sights, such as a tiny little carnival with bubble people:
See, communists can have fun, too. The next day, we decided we wanted to hit the Party Park for a much-recommended brunch (at least recommended by Lonely Planet). The food was incredible and the view excellent. Here are a few photos.

That is a plate of King Snake. Delicious!
Here's the view out the window. We weren't allowed to enter the park, as it is apparently only for Communist Party members. We were allowed to look at it, though.
And of course, my favorite part of the garden, the dragon wall guarding its perimeter.
It was, as you can see, quite awesome.

Later that day, which was mostly filled with wandering about, we ended up having dinner at a nice place in the French Concession which was renowned for its Peking Duck. There was even a photograph of George (Sr.) and Laura Bush eating there in the elevator. We decided to have a little more exotic appetizer.
Mmmm! Fried Scorpion!Yep, scorpions. They were quite crunchy and tasty. Of course, the duck itself was also delicious, and watching the preparation was a treat.
Carved and served right at our table! What service.

After a few nights in our first hostel, we relocated across town to a nice hostel near East Nanjing Road, which is possibly the most famous part of Shanghai. Our first night in our new locale, we took a stroll down said street and, what do you know, I remembered this spot from my last trip to Shanghai.
This is what I always think of when I think of China, and my second trip there did not disappoint. Lots to see, lots to eat, a sea of nose-high faces pressing past. Much of our time in the Bund, as this district of Shanghai is called, was a blur of sightseeing. Right across the Huangpu River is Pudong, Shanghai's newest and glitziest district, with its large towers and relative emptiness (no one really lives there yet). I bought chopsticks, a wall scroll, and avoided buying much, much more. Here are a few photos of the area.
This first shot highlights what is probably one of the more bizarre buildings in Pudong, or for that matter China and maybe the world, the Oriental Pearl Tower. You can also kind of see Jinmao tower rising into the mist, but it's tricky. The Pearl Tower is mostly used for broadcasting television signals but it also serves general-purpose sightseeing and tourist functions.This shot here more highlights an unusual TVboat trolling along the Huangpu. Those adverts on the side are actually giant LCD TVs. After strolling along the Bund riverside, we retired to the hostel, ready for the next day's foray into the strange.

The next day we decided to head for Pudong, and there were several options on how to cross the river. There was a walking underpass which, pardon the pun, seemed too... pedestrian. There was also a ferry, but that ran too infrequently. No, our transport of choice had to be the Bund sightseeing tunnel.
Our descent into madness began quietly enough, with a soothing escalator ride down a green slope, with branches overhead. Keep in mind we are entirely underground at this point.
Welcome to the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel ride, straight out of a Disneyland reject bin. But the best (worst) was yet to come...
Here's the view from one of the very toaster-like rail cars that would be our ferry into the land of the unknown. Let the ride begin!
As we crept slowly under the Hwangpu river, a number of low-grade lighting effects assaulted our eyes with vintage 1960s horror. Flashing rainbow-hued LEDs, bizarre pictures projected onto the curved walls of the tunnel, and even (as barely seen in this shot) wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men! Throughout the whole ride, a strange female disembodied voice intoned totally nonsensical word pairings in English. The only one I remember is "magma understanding" or something like that.

At long last, the car pulled through a series of light-blocking flaps and into the dock on the other side of the tunnel. The nightmare was over. Of course, we did buy round-trip tickets...
And into the fancy district of Pudong we go! Our first stop was the quite-gaudy Oriental Pearl tower. It looks even uglier during the day! However, the view from the top is not to be missed.
Oho! Proof that I was there! It is worth noting that, while Matt was taking this picture using my camera, a bunch of Chinese people were taking my picture as well, with their own cameras. Eerie! Anyway, like I said, the view:
Ok, so this still isn't the view, but I thought this barbed lion was too cool not to take a picture of. This is inside the lobby of the pearl tower. That glass elevator in the middle there shoots straight up to the top of the tower. Unfortunately, we were going to be stuck in one of the concrete towers, since we were going to the observation deck, not all the way to the top (too expensive). Nevertheless, that view:
These are the two tallest buildings in China, the Jinmao Tower in front and some will-eventually be taller building whose name I can't remember. So after coming down from the tower, we decided to walk on over to the tallest (completed) building in China to see the famous atrium at the Grand Hyatt hotel.
This is the highest enclosed atrium in the world - not the tallest, but the highest (as in the highest off the ground). We also had a lovely dinner at the restaurant nearby, but my camera was running out of juice and I wasn't able to get any pictures of it. It was nice to live outside our means for a night.

Well, there's only one day's worth of pictures left, taken at the People's Square, on our last day.

And so we conclude our trip to China with adorable children feeding doves! All is right with the world.