The Slitherants: Shanghai

Shanghai...Alright now, Shanghai is a pretty damn cool city, what else can I say! After the serious missioning we had to endure to reach Shanghai it was a huge relief to finally arrive. It was also stinking hot and stayed that way for the duration of our stay. Nothing like sharing the heat and humidity with 19 million other people to really get a sweat going. The average daily temperature was around 38 degrees and as the main reason I had come to Shanghai was to skate then I knew I was in for a bit of a rough time of it. The city itself is amazing with ultra modern skyscrapers towering over old traditional Chinese buildings and, surprisingly, many tree-lined streets and avenues. The old French Concession neighbourhood near the city centre is full of colonial era buildings now remade into super cool shops, bars and restaurants. Foreigner bars are very common here and one western sports bar even had the All Blacks/Wallabies game-stoked!

We wandered around the city centre and the famous shopping strip of 'Nanjing Road' gawking at all the shops and edging our way through the throngs of people. It was unusual to see so many foreigners again and in Shanghai, as opposed to many of the previous places we have visited, no-one gives you a second glance. It was refreshing to not have 'hull-ro' called out at us everytime we walked down the street and you can tell Shanghai is now a truly modern city filled with people from all around the globe. We checked out the architectural mis-mash of buildings that is the 'Bund' riverside area and took a trip on a gondola that runs through a tunnel under the river to the Pudong financial district on the other side. This tunnel was actually pretty cool and it had a flouro light show that you pass through as you make your way from one end of the tunnel to the other. There were crazy inflatable flailing-arm men and words like 'heaven', 'hell' and 'paradise' would flash in front of the gondola and then disappear to be replaced by other lasers and lights. It was very weird but also so bad, that it was actually good, if you know what I mean.

We also were able to catch up with some friends, Johannes and Laura, that we had met in Tioman Island, Malaysia back in February. Laura was working at the Shanghai World Expo which was undoubtedly the biggest show in town with some 35 millioin visitors through the gates at last count. Although the expo had almost tripled accomodation prices during our stay it was, in some ways, a good time to visit the city. As the Expo was in full swing there were volunteers throughout the subway stations and city area to help hapless tourists who can't understand a word of Chinese. Due to Laura working at the Expo, her and Johannes lived in the official workers village inside the enormous Expo compound. This meant they had a sweet apartment on the 12th floor of their riverside building overlooking the Expo site and the city, including the impressive Pudong financial area skyline. The view was incredible and the apartments after the Expo will no doubt be sold to those who are rich enough to afford such a view, so it was nice for us to be able to sneak in there and take advantage of Laura and Johannes's good fortune.

The Shanghai skyline at night is mind-blowing and on the night of my birthday we ventured up to the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial centre to have a drink at the Grand Hyatt's 'Lobby Bar'. Although it might have been the most expensive beer I have ever bought - you basically pay for the view and get the beer for free. Window side tables are highly coveted so it was a pleasant surprise to find that after only a short wait we were ushered to our seats next to the glass overlooking the vertigo inducing Pudong skyline, the Yangtze river far below and the Bund, in which all the buildings are lit up like Christmas trees. Pretty spectacular and not a bad way to toast another year above ground.

Anyway as most of you will probably know the main reason for visiting Shanghai was to finally have a skate at the concrete behemoth that is SMP park. For the non-skaters I shall try to keep this section brief but for the benefit of those who haven't been yet but that might like to, I would like to say a few words about my expeditions out to this place. Well as it is the world's biggest skatepark it was, predictably, rather large. The thing about this place is that I can't for the life of me understand why they built it in the first place. Each time I visited it there were a maximum of two other skaters in an area about the size of three football fields. It costs about 60 yuan ($10AUD) to skate and this seems to be more than most of the local skaters can afford. There is also not many skaters to begin with so how this place can still manage to keep it's doors open I have no idea. No matter though as it was great for me. It was incredibly hot but one area did happen to have shade sails over it so this was where I spent the majority of my time. The bowls themselves are mind-bogglingly massive and just too gnarly for your average skater, especially the local ones. I had a crack in the largest of the bowls but to be honest, with no pads a slam in here on concrete would be a seriously hazardous experience, but I gave it my best!

On my birthday I managed to convince Kate to come along so I could get some photos of yours truly having a jam, for future reference you see. I must admit she was very obliging and her committment was admirable given the soaring temperatures. It was a pretty sweet way to spend a birthday and I felt lucky to be able to finally make it here. I did wish a few of the boys from home were there to help me skate this place too though! It was simply too much skatepark for just one ginga but I really enjoyed my visits to this place. The continuous sweating wasn't that great however, although it did have an unexpected bonus. As I was so soaked after each skate it basically looked like I had peed my pants and this meant that on the subway home no-one really wanted to sit next to me which meant more room for me! As soon as we got nearer the city again though people would invariably try sitting next to me, though they would lean away from me at about a 45 degree angle the other way. Ha, it's only sweat people! I had them fooled good and I did appreciate the extra room on Shanghai's sardine can like subway trains.

Nine glorious days were spent sight-seeing, eating out with our friends Laura and Johannes and indulging in the skateboarding smorgasboard at SMP park. I should mention that the shopping in Shanghai is something else but I'm sure most of you would not be too surprised by that. It's hard just to know where to start as there are more shopping areas and malls than you could possibly hope to visit. By the end even Kate was struggling to make it out again day after day to look around the shops as there were just too many. All in all we had a fantastic time in Shanghai and it seemed all too soon that we had to lug our by now very heavy packs down to the train station to board yet another 'cattle-class' train to Beijing. Thankfully it was to be the last long distance train we would have to take in China and you have no idea how happy this thought made me.

In Beijing we were to stay with friends we had met in Vietnam, Beijing natives, so we hoped to be able to see the city a bit more as locals do rather than just the usual tourist places. It also meant we had free rent for a week-bonus! Anyway it was with some sadness that we bid our friends and Shanghai farewell in order to board another 14 hour train ride to Beijing. As Shanghai is known as a super modern city and Beijing is supposed to be more 'traditional Chinese' we weren't sure whether a week in Beijing would compare to the awesome time we had had in Shanghai. Did it all work out for the best?? Find out next time. 'Til then.

Shanghai and it's lights.

A colourful, big fish pond.

A lovely shot of us with the rainy-misty city in the background.

We went on this touristy gondola underpass from the Bund to Pudong, the financial district. We didn't know what it was so we thought we would have a look.....

and this is what we got - a light show!

It was funny, strange and weird all at the same time.

Tim looking rather happy in the gondola.

The Oriental Pearl (the 'junkie needle with balls' as Tim calls it)

The Oriental Pearl at night.

The Pearl again. There is an elevated pedestrian path above this roundabout which is fantastic as you don't have to worry about the crazy traffic while gazing at the lights.

More views of the city from the roundabout.

I do like the lights!

On Tim's birthday we went to the Hyatt lobby on the 87th floor of the tallest building in Shanghai. I had a lovely mojito and enjoyed the view for only $10 - bargain!

The view of the city from 87 stories high!

Below are a few pictures we took from Johannes' and Laura's apartment. View of the business expo section of the Expo.

The city. The red building has a thermometer on it. The temperature in Shanghai 'never' above 40 degrees otherwise everyone can leave work. Most days while we were in Shanghai the temperature was reported to be 39 degrees but it never hit the big 40! I smell something fishy there!

Another photo of the city because I loved the lights and the city! To the left of the picture is the Expo. No, we never went to it - we were too busy shopping and skateboarding.

A big bridge.

Me trying to pose like a Barbie. This shop has about 5 floors of barbie dolls, accessories, clothing and a barbie cafe!

I will name this barbie, Kate.

The staircase was surrounded by barbies. I think Tim was more excited than me! He found a Deborah Harry (Blondie) barbie which must be the coolest Barbie ever-surely!.

Skateboarding

We couldn't finish our blog on Shanghai without some photos of Tim skating the infamous SMP park. On his birthday, his lovely girlfriend had to spend a day at the skatepark taking photos of him and of course she loved every moment of it.