Sep 18: Advice for Travelers to Shanghai

Shanghai was my least favorite city -- but lots of others disagreed with me. Especially the Chinese fellows who live there and anyone I talked to who had the chance to go out and night. It is a commercial city, and probably a fun one to live in . . . it just wasn't so interesting on the sight-seeing scale for me.

We did the required stuff -- visited the stunning lobby at the Pudong Development Bank at no 12 on the Bund, walked up and down Nanjing road for shopping, and visited the Huxinting Teahouse. I recommend any of the jasmine teas there. The server pours hot water into a glass mug with a large green ball at the bottom and after a few minutes, like a children's toy --put it in water and it grows 10 times its size! -- it sprouts open into a floating flower. Drinking it is pretty good too.

We stayed at the Yangtze hotel, in a "deluxe" double for a little under $100 a night. There was as tate of the art computer in the room available for use which was a pleasant surprise. Very clean and pretty hotel.
Yangtze Hotel
No 740 HanKou Road,
Shanghai
tel: +(021) 6351 7880
e-mail: sales@yangtze.com.cn

(Note added on Sep 25: On my second stay in Shanghai, I stayed at the Hiker Youth Hostel in a single for a little over $20. (Dorm beds are much cheaper.) The room was pretty close to as nice as the Yangtze and it also had free computer access, but in the lobby. It's at No 450 Middle Jiangxi Rd, and phone is 021-6329-7889.)

We had one of our best meals of the trip at the Grape restaurant in the French Concession at No 55 XinLe Road, Shanghai, tel: 021-5404-0486. It's on a wide-tree lined street filled with fantastic -- if expensive -- clothing shops.

Sep 18: The Last Few Days

A quick update. . .

Since we were in Beijing (in, you may recall, the most gorgeous Grand Hyatt hotel of all time), we went to Shanghai on September 15. Shanghai is very Western, as well as somewhat futuristic -- note the sci-fi skyline behind Eleni in the picture. It wasn't overall our favorite city, it just didn't seem all that interesting, but nonetheless fun to walk around in for a day.

Then we spent a day wandering around Suzhou, a town known for its fantastic gardens. . . a few pictures below.
And now we're in Hangzhou for the start of the Melton Foundation symposium!

Advice I Should Have Had

Ok. . . I have discovered blogger, and I'm just not sure what I was doing all these years mucking about changing codes in cgi scripts. Why I was determined to be the uber-geek, when there's, like, the easiest simplest program in the world out there, I don't know. Next thing you know I'll be using a Mac too. . .

Anyway, now that I am a blogger convert, I've managed to get all sorts of photos up in a snap.

So go back through and look at them! I particularly recommend the pandas, and the Great Wall.