Shanghai, or, 'Wait, what do you mean Club Obi Wan isn't an actual dining establishment?'

As I sat in the egg carton seat of the plane, my forehead resting against what felt like a far-too-thin piece-of-plastic window, my eyes darted back and forth between the darkness outside and the small plastic hole at the base of the window. It was the little things like this which kept me from realizing I wasn't actually in Shanghai yet, but still sitting on the tarmac in Beijing. They had served us our meal hours ago, and we slowly waited in line to be de-iced. I wondered why they couldn't position the plane such that we could at least watch the other planes ahead of us disappear into a cloud of steam before streaking off - dripping - down the runway. We had to be content with a lateral view of the airfield, and I busied myself with counting all the lights in sight (267).

After what seemed like a small eternity (but in actuality, was only about 5 hours), some movement outside my window wrenched my attention away from the scenery (and made me lose count of the lights). A small man in a basket was looking at me at eye-level, and with the nozzle pointed at the wing of the plane, let loose with a deluge of hot water*, obscuring my view and for a moment, fooling me into thinking we were finally up in the clouds.

*I don't actually think it was hot water. This just seems to me like it would probably freeze again shortly, which is not a good idea. I can only assume there was some anti-freeze mixed in there as well. Maybe hot sauce too.

When the steam cleared, the small man in his basket slowly backed away, and the plane ambled forward on the runway. Once in the air, the flight itself only took around 90 minutes. Collecting my bag, I made for a taxi and took a very long, very empty freeway to central Shanghai. American music issued from the stereo, and I bobbed my head along to keep from falling asleep in the cab. Reaching the hotel, I checked in, trod wearily to the lift and on to my room, and collapsed into bed (but not before taking a quick peek around the room to see what kinds of goodies there were - mmm, free mouthwash).

I awoke to this - a rain-speckled city which

taunted me with its cool buildings but mocked

me with its annoying rain.

I went to work (gotta make a living, y'know) and finished out the day in higher spirits. The rain had stopped and I had a brand new city to explore. Wrapping myself up in more layers than I probably needed, I set off into the darkness.

Shanghai really is a dichotomy of sorts - a clash

of modern intrusions struggling against the

classic nature of its past. Also, there are lots

of pretty lights.

It reminded me a lot of how the future is

portrayed in films, specifically Blade

Runner. I realize that I reference this film quite

often. I also realize no one has seen it.

As I wandered around, I stuck out like a sore

thumb amongst the swarms of locals, or at

least, people who looked more like locals than

I did.

Which brings me to the next point I'd like to stress, and really, my main one. Shanghai is, without a doubt, a wonderful city, and I would like nothing more to say that wandering around through its streets lined with amazing restaurants and jaw-dropping neon, I began to fall in love with it. But sadly, like so many other things in life, something so great is so easily ruined by a select few. Let me rephrase that - it wasn't a select few...roughly half the population of Shanghai was out to get me.

Let me set the scene for you.

No sooner had I taken two steps onto the main promenade, a small green shape began dancing around my feet. I looked up to see a small, grinning man holding a laser pointer.

"Laser? Laser?"

"Yes - it most certainly is," I replied cordially.

Moving on, I smiled to myself on the jovial nature of the locals. Roughly 3.4 steps later, another shape danced around my feet.

"Laser?"

"I thought we agreed, yes it w-...' I looked up. It was a different guy who seemed intent on outlining my left nipple with the little green laser, such that I quickened my pace and walked briskly by him. No sooner had I passed him, than another man approached me on a pair of skates.

"You want skates?" He performed a slightly awkward spin.

"No, thank you." This seemed to trigger 2 more of his friends who skated up and proceeded to perform the clumsiest interpretation of Disney on Ice I had ever seen (OK, so I haven't seen any, so technically this was the clumsiest).

Dodging the trio of skating brothers, I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and put on my best 'fuck off' face. Enlivened by the challenge, or perhaps viewing me as a more likely clientèle, another shady looking fellow approach and whispered under his breath, "Hashish? You want hashish?" I chuckled at this, as I had heard that selling drugs in Shanghai could result in the death penalty. Shaking my head and deepening my scowl, I soldiered on.

Another man casually strolled by me 4 seconds later.

"Naked massage?" he muttered under his breath. While not actually interested, this one did catch me by surprise, and I responded with a raised eyebrow of skepticism, unsure of whether he was propositioning me, or knew someone who would.

Ditching him by way of a fake to the left and then a full-on sprint to the right, using an old woman as a blocker to cover my escape, I resumed my walk. Scanning my surrounds, my eyes fell briefly on a rather tall woman a good 150 feet away on the opposite side of the promenade. In the fraction of a second I was focused on her, she began striding purposefully through the crowd directly at me. It was not long at all until she crossed my path and posed the question, "What are you doing tonight?" I gave her a quizzical look, pretended like I didn't speak English, and plowed forward, head down. This pattern continued for the entire length of the promenade. It's unfortunate that such a brilliant city has fallen prey to the kind of folk who are there solely to play predator to the visitors and the tourists. Had they not been present, I would have ranked Shanghai as one of the top cities I've seen. At any rate...

Here are some guys who wanted to take their

picture with me (I remembered to ask for one

with my camera this time). You'll notice you

can't see my hands - they're in my back pocket,

covering my wallet.

So, yeah - my initial experience had made me a touch untrusting.

In the occasional spare second or two when I was

not being hounded by street folk, I was able to

soak up the neon joy of the city.

This guy was a small parcel away from tipping

backward and being catapulted back in the

direction from whence he came.

My main destination of my evening stroll through this gauntlet was an area in Shanghai known collectively as The Bund. The Bund is a waterfront area which boasts some gorgeous architecture and is an iconic part of the city. Sadly, Shanghai was preparing for some sort of global conference thing, and much of the area was boarded up or blocked off to public traffic. I still managed to get a couple of pictures.

This area was a haven of sorts - none of the

riff-raff from the promenade managed to make

their way out here.

The Oriental Pearl Tower. Sadly, it was not

as close as it looks, and I didn't get the chance

to go up in it.

More of the Shanghai skyline. The large blue

building in the background was later described

to me as 'the building that looks like a giant

beer bottle opener.' Truth.

If you look really closely, you can see the

eye shine of the laser pointer sellers lurking

just around the corner.

Again, if you've seen Blade Runner (which you

probably haven't), you'll know what I'm talking

about.

One last colorful look out my window before I

hit the hay for the evening. And by hit the hay, I

mean stayed up another 2 hours watching some

crappy monster B-movie on TV. I think a dragon

was terrorizing some small Alaskan town or

something...

Shanghai was a completely different place during

the day when you could actually see more than

just fog and rain.

A rather neat fountain / statue in front of the

office.

After doing what I had come to do there, I gathered my things and headed back to the airport. Instead of taking a taxi back to the airport, I was actually going via the Maglev. It was still half the price of a taxi for a first class ticket, so I splurged and got one of those.

Not quite the goofy duck / platypus-looking front

end of the Japanese Shinkansen, but it still looked

as though it could go pretty fast.

I had the entire first class cabin to myself. So I

had a bit of a wander up to the driver's booth.

Reassured that hundreds of tons of metal were

in the hands of someone sitting at a desk with

a couple of screens, I took my seat and we departed.

I took one last farewell glance at the city that could

have been amazing, and we rocketed off toward

the airport.

They had a speedometer in the cabin purely for

people like me who like to know how ridiculously

fast we are going.

On a related note, I read recently that the industrious people of China are working on a 600 mph vacuum train. Whoa.

8 minutes later, I arrived at the airport, and boarded the plane to my next destination. No snow to stop me this time.