Arrival in Shanghai
A new friend, Pete, picked me up at the airport and helped me locate my place. I had booked this on AirBnB, and while the location was great, and the photos made the place look amazing, in reality it was a pretty run-down building. A former hotel (the Salvo Hotel), it was now under a new model… a hotel, of which people buy rooms, and can decorate and rent them out independently under places like AirBnB or just use them as apartments.
My place was reasonably priced and decently equipped, but had roaches and wasn’t as clean as I would have expected. The bathroom was pretty scummy and the shower was a complex series of pipes and a water heater I couldn’t figure out. I’ll avoid AirBnB in the future. It doesn’t really help customers when it comes to this sort of thing.
The location made up for the room. 10 minutes walk to the Bund. 15 minute walk to the shopping district. 30 minute walk to the French District and the Old Town. A lot of local shops.
Pete had stuff to do, so I settled in and then I check the neighborhood to see where I can buy water and snacks. Every block seems to have at least 4 convenient stores.
I buy one of these crepes…
I quick walk further out into the neighborhood with my compact camera… I wanted to see how close the river was.
I have been to the Bund in 2011 for a brief time. A lot has changed.
The Bund is the waterfront where the Huangpu River separates Huangpu (where I’m staying) from Pudong. On my side the neighborhood is filled with colonial-era granite buildings that give a a very European feel. In pudong we have a massive modern cityscape.
This was one of the last days of the Autumn festival and the place was packed. Police where everywhere and some places along the Bund were filled with pockets of thousands.
I had north and enter Nanjing Road, a high-end shopping district. It’s so packed there are police officers every 10 feet just to keep folks on the narrow sidewalk and out of traffic.
A snack of local dumplings in soup.
Beer from up north.
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