13 June 2010

[HK 10] : Shanghai weekend prologue

Back from a quick 2 night, 1.5 days in Shanghai.

In brief:
  • weather : quite "cool" for Shanghai - only around 25 degrees Celsius and overcast, which is rare
  • doings : long subway rides, the World Expo, eating Shanghainese and Sichuan food, walking around
  • highs : hanging out w/ studiomates, the Vietnam pavilion (w/ its elegant bamboo structure and 2D/3D Buddha statue), really delicious Shanghainese food, Huang and his mom's hospitality, walking through traditional lilong housing, remembering more Mandarin than I thought I would
  • lows : enormous lines for pavilions we had wanted to see but didn't (... British pavilion = 4 hr wait, Saudi Arabia = whopping 8 hr), disorderly people on the bus, taxi drivers who don't know where they're going, trip too short
  • overall : "hen hao war" = very fun
More later.

2 comments:

  1. Ha! I went to the World Expo in Japan my last long trip there... 2005 I think? It was a great experience - very interesting, although a good chunk of the various talks were in Japanese, of course. One thing which amused me there was that the Japanese are very very good about waiting in line, but hate rain with a passion! So, when it started to very lightly drizzle (I mean, really, my mom wasn't even using an umbrella) everyone fled indoors, so we were able to waltz into the Russian pavilion (complete with a wooly mammoth!) with ease.

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  2. Haha - I wish the Chinese were afraid of weather like that. Unfortunately, we're extremely resilient people, so the lines never shortened despite the heat.

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