Shanghai: 28 - 31 Oct 2005
I was told that Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city and is much more advanced that we thought about China. When I got there, I found that it was over-rated. Perhaps the real China is much worse than what I experienced in Shanghai. Whatever the case, elements of rural China still exists in the midst of the bustling city.

Our journey there was an arduous one. We flew by Thai Airways from Singapore to Bangkok, then waited 1.5 hours for a connecting flight to Shanghai, reaching Pudong International Airport after 8 hours departing from Singapore. And it doesn't help that this is the first time I am travelling with a transit flightplan. The pain was gratefully eased as the Bangkok-Shanghai leg showed 'Bewitched' the movie.

Upon touchdown, we had to spend nearly an hour queueing at the immigration, despite opening up nearly 20 counters. We do wonder the efficiencies of the authorities. Fortunately, my wife had her new iRiver H10 to keep her company while I patiently wait in line.

By the time we left the airport, it was 5.30pm. The sun has set, the sky drizzled, and the road jammed. It took us another 1.5 hours to reach the hotel. We took a quick stroll around the vicinity in the rain and cold and found that our hotel is located in a rather good location.

Sightseeing
Our package includes a day tour. Our tour guide is a bubbly young girl studying design degree in her final year. Being a guide for over a year, she is experienced and conversant in English. The tour brought us to Cheng Huang Temple, Song Qing Ling Memorial Park, Yu Yuan, Nanjing Shopping Street and The Bund. Cheng Huang Temple houses one of the 5 largest jade sculpture of Buddha. Song Qing Ling Memorial Park is just a tourist stop to get us to buy some fengshui items. Yu Yuan is an area containing classic Ming-dynasty architecture converted into a tourist shopping community. The Bund is the well-known stretch where you can admire the old European architecture of the buildings on this side of the river (Puxi) and the modern skyscrapers on the other side (Pudong).

On The Road
Shanghai traffic is atrocious. Traffic lights are of no use. Vehicles honk the horns like nobody's business, sometimes I wonder why they do that. I sort of concluded that they honk to let other road users know their presence, not to flare up. Perhaps they should design a vehicle made for China market whereby the horn will auto-honk once every 5 metres.

Drivers seemed to be forgiving when vehicles cut into their paths despite the most impossible conditions. All they did was to honk. Some vehicles even slowdown to a halt just to wait for the traffic to clear before their cut several lanes into the exit-filter in an almost horizontal fashion.

Traffic wardens are stationed at major road junctions to control the pedestrians, who do not bat an eye-lid when it comes to jaywalking. Motorbikes also beat the lights to turn the traffic corners, but some are not lucky to escape reprimand by the wardens.

Public transport is cheap. We only paid RMB3 for all the train stops we travelled. We only took the cab once and the meter never jumped beyond the starting price of RMB10. The only major problem is that the interchange stations are so far away from one another, it took a good 5 minutes to walk across. Buying train ticket is still a manual over-the-counter affair, although it could have been automated. When entering the station, you scan the ticket on top of the sensor. When you leave the station, you slot the ticket into the gate reader. Singapore should use this model, instead of getting the passengers to refund the ticket deposit value.

People
The same experience I had in Hainan is replayed in Shanghai: touts everywhere distributing cards. Don't ask me what they are selling, because I never took a single one. Even in tourist night markets, these people will walk the distance with you to push their wares.

One particular experience that I never forget was a 5-year old girl grabbing me with her popsicles on her hands begging me to buy one. She had a good grip and I dare not push her away too hard lest she fell and injure herself. My wife tried to rescue me and told the girl 'Don't be like that'. She responded in a pitiful tone," I won't be like that if you buy from me." A brief tussle later, I'm out of her hands.

The government tries very hard to educate the people to become a more gracious society. Announcements were heard every MRT stop to desist touts, give way to passengers. On cabs, lengthy credo is displayed on the back of the cab driver. Passengers have the right not to pay cab drivers if he does any of the following: do not greet you, do not discuss the route to take, spit out of the cab, give wrong change, etc. Such credo is also found on some cashier tables, where the store management encourages shoppers to lodge complaints for any mis-appropriation by offering gratutide gifts.

Food
Prior to the vacation, we gathered enough information to know where to eat the best foods. But we didn't eat any of them, because it's out of the way. We did enjoy the normal food fare. Food is cheap, just like what everyone said. Don't count on the free buffet breakfast provided by the hotel, which tastes bland. Interestingly, many hotels are integrated within office buildings. For our hotel, the guest rooms are situated from Floors 18-25, while offices are from 5-17 floors.

Shopping
This is the favourite part of the trip, not that I am a shopaholic. But when it comes to photographic equipment and music albums, China is a haven. In fact, any products made-in-China are cheaper in China. Full-colour photography magazines range from RMB15. I bought a monopod and a reflector for a total price of RMB300. Original CDs and DVDs (Code 6) start from RMB18, although the range is terribly limited due to the largely regulated and censored market. Still, I got 12 discs in all, totalling around RMB250.

China is hungry for knowledge. They have large book stores over 7 storeys covering every aspect, from food, fashion, to philosophy and self-learning. China has a huge market for music instruments and photography. Shanghai recently held a musical instrument convention where makers displayed their latest acoustic and electronic instruments. Photography market is so huge that they have over half a dozen monthly publications dedicated to photographic learning. The current trend of photography is post-processing (photoshopping), which I though is rather over-used. Despite decades of popularity in Taiwan and China, self-pictorial albums (Xie Zhen Ji) is not picking up in Singapore enough to be a money-making trade in itself.

In general, China fashion sense is not as westernised, and therefore the clothes and accessories did not suit my wife's taste. But it probably doesn't matter in China since their market is so large that they could well set their own trend, waiting for the world to accept. One very ironic thing I found: most roadside shops plays pipe-in CD music which skips. It's either they are using pirated CDs or the CD player is of interior quality.

Photos
I did not expect to take a lot of photos, since it's not really a sightseeing vacation. What I did was to capture the urban architecture and street portraits. Click here for the photo gallery.

Food
Thanks to our Singaporean friend who works there, we experienced some local food fare. He brought us to a hawker food strip where it served great beef kway teow. We also tried a noodle-like dish where you eat it with bowls of curry or tom yam. Fortunately for us, the buffet breakfast tasted better than in Shanghai, so we had some hearty meal on the house.

I managed to collect some food-related websites on Bangkok. http://www.kanomjin.com/ http://www.94coffee.com/ .

Shopping
After visiting Shanghai, you would appreciate Bangkok. There are no touts and shopping is a much more pleasant experience. Afterall, Thailand is well-known for its warm and friendly people. They may not be the most courteous, but certainly not hostile.

We visited Pratunam and was overwhelmed by its large number of stalls, mostly doing wholesale business. You see accessories shops piecing fancy necklaces and packing them outside the shops for distribution. You see stacks of original T-shirt designs waiting for bulk customers. Indeed, Bangkok is not just a place to buy "fakies" but a haven for 'designer' products.

Our trip coincided with ELLE Fashion Week held at Central World Plaza (formerly World Trade Center). Although we are unable to enter the tent, we could watch the fashion runway from the large screen outside the tent.

MBK is our last stop, where we bought T-shirts, shades and a few more CD/DVDs. The exact opposite to China, we found many English titles but lacks Chinese titles. We were unfortunate to have broken a pair of shades in an established department store. It is not our fault as the plastic frame had probably turned brittle due to prolonged exposure to elements. The price tag was 890 baht, but the sales staff told us that we could just pay 120 baht to cover for the repairs. It was probably a daylight bribe, or could be a genuine offer, but we didn't care. Sometimes, we'd rather pay money to solve some problems.

Generally, Bangkok entertainment and fashion industry is more westernised than China, and therefore the clothes and accessories suit my wife's taste. Check this out showing the area where we spent our good 2 days. Our hotel, Asia Hotel, is next to BTS-Ratchathewi. Speaking of which, Asia Hotel underwent a minor retrofit, so the furnishings are new, although the rest of the fittings like water taps remained unchanged.

Bangkok photos