Shanghai - places of intrest

today I had some time in the afternoon to do a little sightseeing. Starting at "The Bund" which I drove by on my way to the hotel after my "driver" got lost... I made a short walk along the river. Due to the fact next year there will be World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the city is one big construction area at the moment. Most probably it will be nicer to walk here next year. On the boulevard there are a lot of binoculairs to look to the Pudong side of the Huangpu River. The sad thing is that when people use them, it plays an annoying tune which remind me of an old Snoopy-game on a commodor 64 (you old people will know what I mean...) So the construction on one side and this tune on the other side... its hard to enjoy the beautifull old buildings on the bund and the sky-scrapers on the Pudong side.

I hade a nice walk downtown where you can still find some old hutongs-like areas with small houses and wonderfull sceens of people coocking outside their windows on airconditioners, people fixing bikes on the streets, cars and bikes driving like mad, loud traffic (everybody seems to use their horns constantly) and people walking on the streets.

I had my diner in Xintiandi. Its a recently new area (approx 10 years) which is supossed to look like the old Shanghai. Dozens of bars and restaurants (from easy to luxurious). I had diner at a place called "Zen" mainly because they had one table left.. So I had my first go for chicken-feet and some other unspecified dishes with duck and meats from I-dont-know-which-animal-it-used-to-be.

After diner I had a beer on a terras from a place a live band was playing and enjoyed watching people walking by; lots of groups with tourists all following the guy with the umbrella and locals.

Going back to my room at the 76th floor of Grand Hyatt Pudong, I had a nice city view from my bathtub and a wonderfull hard needed rest.