27 in Shanghai!


Friday was Mat's Birthday, so we headed to Shanghai for a weekend of busy city fun.
We had a nice ride on the 6:30 hard seat train and were whisked away to our hotel when we arrived in Shanghai just 1 hour later.

Location, Location, Location
Our hotel was just a 5 minute walk from the Bund (just a long stretch of asphalt lining the bank of the river that dates back to Shanghai's building boom of the 30s.)

More importantly though, was that fact that our hotel was very close to a Pizza Hut and since it was Mat's birthday---that's where we went.

The next two days were spent enjoying some of the city's highlights.

We went to the Museum of Natural History (the sum total of all life on Earth---ever!!), but was interestingly falling apart. In comparison, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition (which is 500 years of 1 city's development), was in immaculate and perfect condition.....

The urban planning exhibit was great! You can see from the pics, the most impressive full-scale model of Shanghai today and soon to be.

(Mat's getting philosophical here) It seems like a bit of a pissing contest: my city's bigger, nicer, more developed...than yours.

After some shopping, we headed to Shanghai Circus world. Like cirque de soliel, but with slanty eyes. It was great. Eventhough we bought the cheapest tickets in the house we ended up with front row and were inches away from the performers.

Who knew bodies could contort that way.

These little girls....bending and flexing----Mat was having fun. (Well it was his birthday and all).

Mat rebuts with (in complete sarcasm--his specialty): "sabrina never noticed the exceptionally well toned bodies of the boys."

The rest of the weekend was spent browsing and bargaining. We walked the Bund, ate at a super girly restaurant with floral print EVERYWHERE and Teddy Bear mascots. The seats were cool, since they had chairs that swung from the ceiling.

We had Hot Chocolate at Starbucks, since the 15 degree Celcius weather was chilly for us (ha ha ha). The best part was that this was Mat's first Starbucks Hot Chocolate Ever! He enjoyed it----no oyster sauce. Quite the change from normal.

Oh look how pretentious you can be at Starbucks.

The coolest thing about the whole weekend though (for me atleast) was the fact that during our taxi ride to the hotel we witnessed a tv program being played in the taxi. If that isn't cool enough, the program was about Terry Fox. They showed pics and clips of him, as well as footage of the Shanghai Terry Fox Run (don't know when it is/was, or I would have done/would do it).

Even in Chinese I was proud to be Canadian.