Hi from the Peace Hotel in Shanghai. They’ve got a wireless lan that’s only 20 yuan for an hour. We arrived from Hong Kong yesterday, caught the maglev train from the aiport at 430km an hour. Slept for a while – I was being slayed by jetlag yesterday, though an hour and a half’s sleep after partying in Hong Kong the night before probably didn’t help.
We had dinner in one of the local restaurant streets, getting vegie stuff was surprisingly easy. The menu is crazy, next time I’m taking notes so I can report back. Our waitress giggled every time she had to talk to us and at one point offered us a choice of cold or warm beer.
The cocktails we had in the famous Jazz Bar back at the Peace Hotel almost cost as much as the dinner each (70 RMB each compared to 79 for the whole meal). The band played all the standards, the crowd was a mixture of locals, expats and tourists.
The dining room we had breakfast in looks out over the Bund. There are some amazing sci-fi style buildings across the way. It’s sunny but there’s so much smog or haze that you can’t see that much of the city. I had a mixture of everything they offered at breakfast, including dim sum, scrambled eggs (with slices of bread in it?!), preserved fruit, cheese and salads.
Today we’re going to explore the old Chinese city, maybe do some shopping, stroll along the Bund and have dinner at M on the Bund tonight.