Shanghai, China 上海

April-May 2010

I stayed in Shanghai for over a month to prepare for Cisco's activities at World Expo 2010 (minus a one day trip to Korea to fulfill my 30-day visa limit), then another six months through Expo. I enjoyed experiencing the city as a semi-resident, living in a service apartment and working. Much like NY, there are tourist attractions but the urban life is what makes the city so compelling. Fantastic restaurants and shopping, different neighborhoods, easy to get around, I understand why there are so many expats here.

Here's the famous view of the Pudong banks and the Bund from New Heights, the 7th floor bar at Three on the Bund


There are touristy sites in Shanghai, like the Yu Yuan Garden and the Bund and museums, but I find it to be a great experiential city. There are plenty of things to do outside of sightseeing in Shanghai.

I wrote this post about Living in Shanghai for some friends who were moving there. If you scroll down about halfway to “Stuff to do” there’s a whole list of well, stuff to do. The Shanghai Night Bike Ride is super fun and a great way to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time. They are run every Tuesday by this company Bohdi, and they do other tours too. Otherwise the city is quite easy to get around – cabs are super cheap and the subway is very accessible as well.

Also, if you like to go out, Shanghai nightlife is quite robust and there’s something for everyone if you don’t mind shaving sleep time. Note that the expat and local places are different.

The food is phenomenal in Shanghai, Western and Asian. It’s funny, the street food and high end cuisine is quite cheap, while mid-range still feels the same as the US. It is a slightly dated list, but here are some of my favorite restaurants in Shanghai. Definitely find “xiaolongbao”, or soup dumplings, which are absolutely delicious. If you don’t find street food of it, DinTaiFung is a chain and absolutely phenomenal – it’s at Xintiandi so relatively easy to get to on your own.

See the food blog for other Shanghai restaurants. More on food...

• Really good. It's hard to go wrong here. Again like NY, I don't think a bad restaurant would last too long here
• Huge range of cuisine and prices. I tend to like the local food and it is surprisingly healthy. However if you want your Jean Georges or other Western food, there is plenty of it as well, though you'll pay for it. There are also classy Chinese or Asian food places with ambiance and ok food that can get quite expensive
• French Concession is super cute neighborhood with nice cafes and restaurants. I liked sasha's and I hear Azul has a great brunch. Very West Village-like for you NYers.
• The Bund has a lot of high end Western friendly restaurants and bar/lounges
• Xintiandi also used to foreigners and has some great Chinese food including Dintaifung for dim sum. There is also Cold Stone Creamery and a pizza place for cravings (I am totally jonesing for a burrito after 3 weeks...)
• Get your own groceries. My service apartment has a small kitchen and fridge so I have been lucky enough to eat in. I happen to be a few blocks from City Supermarket at Times Square, which is an expat friendly high end grocery store, but I also found a local market that has plenty of fresh foods.

Here's more on two local trips that you can do from Shanghai

• Hangzhou - Hangzhou is about 1 ½ train ride from Shanghai with a beautiful lake, Xixi wetlands, tea village, and a cool show. It would be worth spending one or two nights there for sure
• Zhouzhuang - Zhuozhuang is a water village about an hour drive from Shanghai. Both Zhuozhuang and the much larger Suzhou are called the “Venice of the East” because of its canals, but Suzhou is as touristy as Venice plus an industrial Chinese city, so I’m not a huge fan. Zhuozhuang is also touristy (all of China is, really) but much smaller and quaint. Quite easy to get around and much less crowded.

If you have more time to travel

• Beijing - Beijing and the Great Wall are obvious destinations for a China excursion. You can probably see things in the city like the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square over a few days, and spend one full day at the Great Wall. My friend and I did it in four days. It’s a 2 ½ hour flight and depending on if you’re transferring directly or not, you’ll want to fly out of Hongqiao (SHA) rather than Pudong (PVG) – think LGA vs EWR.
• Sichuan - Sichuan is awesome – the spicy food, pandas, nature – I would love to go back. Chengdu is 3 ½ hour flight from Shanghai, then Jiuhuang is another 45 min where Jiuzhaihou and Huanglong are.

One last thing – not sure if you speak any Mandarin… In the touristy areas, you will find people who speak English but expect that most people don’t. The hotels should be able to set up you with drivers or tours, and unfortunately they are probably ripping you off but still should be reasonably priced. Taxi drivers are on meter, almost never speak English so make sure you carry written addresses with you or have an app that will save addresses or convert other words. Google Translate isn’t bad, and SmartShanghai app is $5 but awesome – it’s like Yelp but has a “taxi card” function where you can show the address in big Chinese letters to your driver (for whatever reason, Shanghai cabbies have horrible eyesight and have a lot of trouble with small font…)

Zhouzhuang, China 周圧

April 2010

Zhouzhuang is a water village about an hour west of Shanghai. The old town dates from 1076 and is connected by canals and bridges. About 3000 people live in the quaint and beautiful town, which also has great crafts and food in addition to the old residences and tea shops.

Here's the KodakGallery album from the day

We hired a driver for the half day, leaving Shanghai a little before noon. He dropped us at the main gate, where they sell tickets to enter the old town for 100rmb.

Zhuozhuang water village

The beginning of the walk towards the heart of the old town is a little kitschy... strange inflated dolls and new old-looking buildings. We saw the rehearsals for the big cultural show that runs in the evening (not sure if we'd go back for that)

The entrance to the main street of town is where the shops start and continue all through the alleys by the canals. Zhouzhuang has some great food and crafts, and spurred an unexpected shopping spree...

• Wansan pork leg - this smoked pig leg is a Zhouzhuang specialty and they have it everywhere. Even our driver bought three to bring back to his family in Shanghai. You can get the hoof or parts of the leg, and price depends on where on the pig the part came from (10rmb for foot, up to 35rmb for front flank). Looks really fatty but actually not super greasy and delicious.
• Stinky tofu - yes it smells but it is yummy. They fry it up and then put a sweet
  soy based sauce and dabs of spicy, I liked it a lot.
• Sweets - so many kinds and oh so good. I really like the peanut-sesame pieces that they pound into blocks. Lai Yun had some malts and the beard candy, which really does look like a beard when it gets stuck on your chin. They also had baked sweet breads and hard candy.


• Art - the beautiful canals and bridges inspire some great art. Little shops sell traditional Chinese paintings and scrolls. There are four famous bridges in the town, which seem to be the primary theme for most of the art.


• Carved stone teapots - a trade passed down over generations, the crafts people carve stone from nearby Tai Hu Lake into intricate tea pots.


• Pottery - stores sell antique pottery, but I was drawn to the little Shin-chan figurine that you pour water on, and well, it pees. For dear my brother :)


• Combs - we saw others crafting horns into combs.


• Silk - as with a lot of shopping areas, handmade clothes and other trinkets as well as bedding are plentiful here.


• Grandma's tea - local blend of flower tea, was ok.


• And tons of other chochkies - jewelry, watches, stamps, notebooks...

The heart of the old town has narrow main roads along the canals, and small alleyways that lead back into residential areas. There are a few old residences that you can tour, Zhang and Shen's are the largest and most famous. We entered the Li(?) residence, a wonderful old house filled with the housewares and art from the era. Unfortunately, no photos/videos allowed (and the ladies follow you around the whole house), but we were entranced by the beautiful inner courtyards and traditional architecture.

The early part of the afternoon was serene and peaceful, low murmur of voices and water. While we sat in the tea shop to eat our tea eggs and try some Grandma's tea, we started to see hoardes of flag waving tour guides with their red capped followers. One after the other after the other. The narrow streets were packed and people yelling everywhere. The late afternoon is indeed the most beautiful time of day, with the light playing off of the water and buildings. However, beware the 3-5 pm tourist scrum that happens every day (we were saying perhaps the morning light might be nice also).

Boat ride in Zhouzhuang

We made our way to the docks for a boat ride (100rmb per boat). There is a set course through the main canal during the busy afternoon, but it was wonderful to be on the water and away from the crowds. The boat driver sang a few "boat songs" as he rowed, though he did ask for an "enjoy song fee" later.

The highlight of the day may have been back in Shanghai. Our driver invited us to dinner with his family in Shanghai. We visited his wife at the silk store that she runs on the north end of the city. Then his elder daughter, a local design student, joined us for a wonderful meal at the eatery next door. She is a lovely girl and we had some really interesting conversation with Lai Yun, my Singaporean friend who graciously translated for me.

Here's more information from wikitravel.

World Expo Shanghai 2010

World Expo Shanghai 2010 will be the "largest ever gathering of humanity in the history of mankind" with over 70 million people expected to attend over the 184 days from May 1 to October 31. Cisco is a senior IT sponsor and host to a corporate pavilion, themed "Smart+Connected Life."

I'm fortunate to be in Shanghai to help prepare the Cisco Pavilion for our customers. Here are some videos and photos from the preparation and stress test of the Expo site prior to the opening.

See the Picasa web album for some photos of Expo Pavilions. The slideshow starts with Puxi side Zone D (Corporate) and Zone E (Corporate, Urban Best Practices Area), then Pudong side Zone A (China, Asia, Middle East), Zone B (South Asia), and Zone C (Europe, Americas, Africa).


April 20

Day 1 of public stress tests. Over the next week, the Expo Bureau will open the Expo grounds to 50,000 to 200,000 people to "test" the site -- everything from safety and security to whether the plumbing will hold. Note that the "test" sample is the size of a small American city...



World Expo 2010 Shanghai - Zone D

Cisco Pavilion is in Zone D closest to Entrance No. 1. You'll see the security lines (96 security machines!), the vastness of the grounds, and the Cisco Pavilion. The public show at Cisco Pavilion introduces the challenges of urbanization and the concept of Smart+Connected Life, then demonstrates the experience through three generations of a Shanghai family in 2020. We are co-located with the other corporate pavilions also on the Puxi side.



Expo 2010 Urban Best Practices Area

The Urban Best Practices Area is in Zone E on the Puxi side, and consists of "Case Pavilions" which host exhibits for multiple cities in one building as well as city pavilions, like Madrid or Shanghai, who have their own structure.

The Madrid Pavilion was well done and had the meatiest content around how they have built and managed their city. Exterior is cool too, its modelled on the Casa De Bambu in Madrid. Would recommend for anyone interested in city planning, urban design, etc.

The joint case pavilions are easy to get in but a little less compelling. Several cities share each building, and their showcases range from the fun, interactive activities (Seoul, Bologna) to museum-like exhibits with some video and signage (most others) with plays on the space to localize. Shenzen was an arty fun-house with rooms filled with paintings and modern art installments, Porto (Brazil) had cool video walls and game on touch screen table.



Shanghai Expo Pavilion of Future

The Pavilion of Future, while I made fun of the 19th century factory-like exterior design, is a fantastic exhibition about how mankind views the future with a perspective to cultural and urban planning. Great video and other content that shows real-life best practices in areas of urban design, sustainbility, city management, and the like. The Pavilion suggests a 'fast' and 'slow' line for a 20-minute or 40-minute visit, but I think I spent a good hour in there, and this was without crowds. Loved it.

April 21

Only 50,000 people were expected for the second day of stress tests, and I could really feel the difference. Much less people, no lines for security, ferries, or buses, though queueing for Pavilions may have been worse since very few were open today.



Expo 2010 Zone A Pavilions

I took the free Expo ferry from L3 on Puxi side about 3 minutes from Cisco Pavilion, to L2 on Pudong side on East end near the Japan Pavilion and Gate 4. Also shown are Vietnam, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and India country pavilions, all in Zone A (note: video title is mistaken!)

Expo has multiple modes of free transport within the grounds. Ferry was good, subway seems straight forward. The bus will be a disaster... they run the length of the Pudong side. With almost no people on site on a moderately warm day, the electric buses were overflowing and smelly with barely standing room and a lot of shoving.



Expo 2010 Europe Pavilions

The European pavilions are in Zone C closest to the river. They have some of the most interesting architecture out of the country pavilions. Of course the Scandinavian countries are all fabulous with clean lines and well designed space.

The UK pavilion is the most fascinating -- surreal porcupine like structure that is actually 60,000 fiber optics rods that let light in turing the day and in turn lights up the exterior at night.



Expo 2010 Americas and Asia Pavilions

The Americas pavilions and some of the Asia pavilions are in Zone B and C. The USA, Canada and Australia pavilions are enormous and impressive from the outside. The Asia square has the Aussies, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines in one place, and Vietnam is over by Korea and Japan

Walking further West towards the China Pavilion, I came across the behemoth Theme Pavilions. I jumped into the Pavilion of Urban Being right as they closed the line -- it shows city infrastructure, rail, utility, urban life, and the highlight is a very well done film with vignettes from urban life around the world (teared at the Sichuan segment themed "resilience")



Expo 2010 - Pudong side

I have many photos of the China Pavilion but I didn't attempt to get in line, as I hear they're running 2 hour waits with reservation during testing

I went to the Expo Culture Center, which has performance hall, movie theaters, and shopping -- 360 view of the Expo site from their 6th floor observation decks for aerials of Pudong and some of Puxi side. No exhibits, likely not for a customer visit.

April 23

200,000 people were expected for today, though there were no lines at Gate 1 by 2pm when I entered.



Expo 2010 Japan Business Pavilion

There happened to be a short line at the Japan Business Pavilion two doors down from Cisco Pavilion. They have a main movie, the series of 3 min shows by the sponsoring companies, and a live show outside. Interesting video including a 3D show, a globe-shaped theater where it "snows" at the end, and choreographed windows. I am going back for the "world's best toilet" which was not on display today...



Expo 2010 at night

Expo at night is a fantastic experience. The awe of Vegas, and certainly the energy costs, but more beautiful. I can be mesmerized by the lighted buildings all night! Expo is open until midnight, definitely worth waiting until nightfall.

We had dinner at LaoFengGe PinZhenXuan next to the Coca-Cola Pavilion on the 2nd floor, Zone D. Good selection of Shanghainese food and appropriate for customer meetings. They take reservations with minimum one day advance notice (33300078 and 33300079)

Hangzhou, China 杭州

April 2010

Hangzhou highlights:

• West Lake - stay in a hotel on the lake, get a boat ride for the day, haggle for silk in shop
• Xixi Wetlands - national park lands that used to be Song dynasty resort area, go early morning to beat the crowds
• Longjing tea village - taste at the tea shops and see the roasting
• Impressions on West Lake - amazing night time show by Zhang Yimou (Beijing Olympics opening ceremony) set in the middle of the lake
• FOOD - Hangzhou cuisine is lighter with fresh fish, vinegar based sauces, and just delicious

We decided to take a weekend trip to Hangzhou, a 'second tier' city about 150 km from Shanghai. I say 'second tier' in quotes because while it is considered a 'small city' by Chinese standards with 6.1 million residents, Hangzhou is over 6 times the size of San Francisco, which many consider a legitimate size city.

We trained it... purchased tickets on Monday, 64 CNY (about each way first class on the express. We got to Shanghai South station and tried to get on an earlier train, but no luck. Btw, this train station is bigger than many legitimate international airports in the US. However, the capacity for the space is severaly under strain... the waiting area was standing room only, and wow do the Chinese not need their personal space.

The craziest thing was the mad rush of thousands to the train, though puzzling given (I think) most of the train had assigned seating...


Craziness at Shanghai South Train Station

The train was nice actually, though 7 pm meant too dark for good views. We arrived in Hangzhou in about 1 hr 30 min, and we (mistakenly) decided to avoid the mad crowd and wait to get off the train. We were literally the last ones to get off of the train. We walked towards the taxi signs... and discovered why rushing in the disembarking process would have been a good idea. So we got in a semi-orderly line down this narrow, poorly lit hallway... the gypsy cabs started to peddle... I am very fortunate to be with two Mandarin speakers, one Chinese, one Singaporean. I do however know that "bu yau" (don't want) is the correct answer to these non-authorized cabs. Even the locals have healthy skepticism about safety, not to mention the 2x-3x price.

Now, we decided not to enlist the services of the gypsy cabs. But. In turn we experienced first hand the challenges of urbanization... This city has exploded in size and popularity in the past decade without building corresponding infrastructure. That means that a 1 hr 20 min train ride of 150km can be followed by a 1 hr 30 min cab line queue to travel 5km. Wow.

Once in a cab, we drove out of the very typical built out Asian city downtown towards West Lake area where we were staying at the Shangri-la Hotel, a beautiful old hotel right on the lake. It is actually a gated complex with multiple buildings. They do also have staff with pretty decent English skills.

We tried to book some tours in the morning, and it turned out lucky for us we couldn't book morning-of. We hired a cab driver for the day and head out to Xixi Wetlands, about 20 minutes from West Lake.

We arrived early, around 9am and traded phone numbers with the driver for pick up in a few hours. They are wetlands and national park lands. The area was used as Song dynasty resort land for the later generations (who subsequently lost power I think), and has a number of areas with old (or more often reconstructed) buildings from that time period. It was a lovely walk in the park, at least for the first few hours until the tour groups started.

After walking the length of the park, we decided to take a boat ride on the canals to return to our pick up location. We wanted one of the small boats with a personal rower, but apparently you can only charter one of those at the main entrance, not at the smaller docks along the way. So we found one of the loading docks for the larger (20-30 ppl) motorized boats. After some queueing, we had a pleasant ride on the rivers.

GO EARLY. We had minutes at a time to ourselves in the morning. We spent the late morning and early afternoon walking around groups and waiting behind cigarette smoke

Some funny footage from Xixi... apparently old Kung Fu masters used to practice agility on tree stumps...



Crouching Paula Hidden Lai Yun

After Xixi, our next stop was Longjing tea village. Longjin, which means Dragon Well, is the home of Longjing green tea, and the village is home to the farmers who grow, harvest and roast the tea, as well as the tea houses who cater to tourists to come to taste and see. It was a beautiful town built into the hills, along with the terraced tea fields. The tea is definitely expensive (especially when they know you are a tourist) but worth going to taste and see the tea being made and walk around.

Longjing Dragon Well tea village

Dinner at Lou Wai Lou - this is one of the famous restaurants in Hangzhou. Very large but we barely got a table when we arrived at 5:30 pm, they don't take bookings. Hotel at recommended no later than 6 pm for no wait and that might even be late. Absolutely delicious local cuisine and reasonable (123 CNY per person)

We had tickets to the 9:15 pm Impressions performance (there's also a 7 pm). Absolutely amazing and entertaining. Imagine the awe and beauty of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony with more creativity using the landscape of West Lake and less scale. The lake is literally the stage -- there is a platform that can be raised and lowered in the lake so the actors "walk on water" and also arrive via boats. The trees and pagodas are lit up, and in different colors throughout the show. Definitely go see one if you have the chance, Zhang Yimou has others across the country. Photos and video doesn't do the magical performance justice, but here is their promotional video



Ultimately the show was a 9 out of 10, with the minus one point solely because of the audience. As ironic as it sounds, Americans have a certain etiquette for spectating that is a luxury - no talking during the show, no flash photography or filming, no smoking... unfortunately these things were extremely distracting during the show. A beautiful scene in the light show is unfolding, then you see flash-flash-flash. Clearly the flash photography is doing nothing to capture the night time scene, but happens throughout the show nonetheless.

On Sunday morning, our attempt to drive out to the ancient Lingyin Temple was thwarted by parking lot-like traffic on the main Beishan Road around the lake. We hopped out of the cab and were denied by the bike rental folks -- apparently you need to procure a special card before using the kiosks to rent. But that led us to try a boat for our transport mode for the day, and that proved to be a wonderful experience.



On West Lake

The boat driver dropped us at the west end of the lake to a pearl shop. We didn't find any we wanted, though very pretty fresh-water pearls there, and we head across the street to a tea shop, where we tasted and bought about 500g for 800CNY between the three of us. Then we stopped at a "Farmer's Happiness" restaurant for lunch -- these are eateries where you point and choose your meal (rather than from a menu). Food was fantastic and fresh. We ate many vegetable dishes, amazing Peking duck, jellyfish, more fresh water fish, and soup.



Lunch at Farmer's Happiness