After a good two hour delay of our flight we finally arrived at Pu-Long airport. The breeze of fresh air, clear sky (not blue but still) and actual bushes and green grass made a good impression. Topped off with a much nicer airport and about 10 degrees warmer it seemed I would like Shanghai more than Beijing.

While driven to our hotel Laura actually started to film how the guy was switching lanes. It looked like a video game, I wouldn’t call it unsafe but he did drove pass an ambulance with flashing lights on the inside. In Beijing everyone drives like crazy but it’s mostly fender bender accidents since the speeds are so low. So far it seems that in Shanghai the tempo is a bit higher.

When we arrived at our hotel it looked very promising, a guy called Mathias has set everything up including getting us rooms for a very nice price. We had e.g. bathtubs in the room and a nice flat screen TV for 35 € per double. Like this wasn’t enough he has compiled a detailed itinerary for the ~20 people that will be attending. Complete with addresses, numbers and names it looks awesome. Mathias does groups of tourist now and then and said that we would pull some strings for my traveling in Tibet, sa-weet.

When strolling to the restaurant we were having lunch at I was fascinated by the sights in Shanghai. Really nice skyline, parks and people seem friendlier and happier here.
Today we were going to a rather posh place called Laris for dinner (after some cocktails at another place) so it was time to dress up. The place was nice indeed, the interior was marble all over, linen cloth at the bathroom and needless to say the view was awesome. After enjoying our courses we did the mistake of trying to sort out the bill. Since Helen doesn’t drink alcohol it seemed rather fair, after a good half hour we decided that in the future the rest would split after deducting her bill.

We moved on to a club called Glamour for more drinks but three different clubs doesn’t count as a night so we were off to find this newly opened club Mathias had heard about. We found the club but getting there was harder. It seemed like a good idea at the moment to run the escalators in the wrong direction and the sight of Ulf running with Tara heaved over his shoulder and struggling to reach the last step while Alex almost felling over in front was awesome. I think that someone managed to catch it on their camera, I sure hope so.

When we finally got back to the hotel I asked for internet access and they told me that they would send up a guy with a cable to my room right away. Which meant that my room now is considered to be the internet cafe for the six of us.