# Shanghai China



## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

In an unrelated 'can thread I mentioned my travel to Shanghai and potter asked about pictures. My company maintains an office there and on occasion I get to go visit. I just came back from a trip Sep 8-15, and previously had gone in May of 2010 (during the Shanghai World Expo).

The photos below will be a selection of scenes from both trips, I got some more interesting shots the first time.


[*Disclaimer,* _no hearths where harmed/involved in the making of this thread_.]


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2012 Trip...


First a note on Shanghai... The city itself is HUUUUUGE. The city is divided by the Huangpu river (which empties into the Yangtze). The central area of the city is divided into two zone the Puxi (west of river) which is the old city with all the interesting sights, touristy stuff, city government etc and the Pudong (east of river) taht is the corporate zone. I was mostly in Pudong.

First some not so exciting scenes from the hotel and office.







View from my hotel room at the Marriot in downtown Pudong. If you look closely in the distance you can see the Oriental Pearl Tower and the World financial center (aka "the can opener")







And similarly here is the view from my office of the river front. That building is the Mandarin Oriental hotel.  My company owns 5 floors in a 50 story tower called the One Lujiazui building.


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

The Pudong region is one of China's special economic zones. The entire are was built from nothing in 15 years or so and the centerpiece is the Lujiazui area - a green space surrounded by a ring road and massive buildings. The largest are in the photo below


The "Pagoda" is the Jin Mao tower. Its 88 stories tall, for a long time was the largest building in Shanghai and _was_ home to the worlds highest hotel. The Grand Hyatt Shanghai occupies the top 30 floors.

The "bottle opener" is the Shanghai world Financial Center. its 101 stories tall, built by the Japanese. Again to one up the Jin Mao another Hyatt hotel was opened at the top. Supposedly the shape of the building was to resemble a Katana samurai sword but it looks more like a church key to me...

The building in the background is a new mega tower under construction by a Chinese firm to be even taller. They don't want Japan to get away with the biggest building in town.


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

The building that Shanghai is really famous for is the Oriental Pearl Tower.  I think its over 1800ft, there is an observation deck and the top is all TV and radio transmitters.

Here is yours truly at the base hanging out wwith our local office manager.  There is a history museum, pedestrian area, hotels and a massive shopping mall called the "Super Brand" at the base.


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

Not much siteseeing on this trip, but I did get out to the shopping street Nanjing Dong Lu


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

Shanghai 2010


I did a lot more sightseeing when I visited in 2010

The "Bund" (riverfront) at night...


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

The Yu Garden


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

Pudong at night


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

The park in the center of Lujiazui has a pavillion charting the commercial development of the area










Our building, on a no smog day


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

One fun pastime is to go out to eat in all the top floor restaurants around town.  The dish was not as spicy as it looks...


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

People's Square and the Shanghai Museum


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

Highlight of the trip was a visit to the world Expo.  Attendance was over 400,000 on the day I was there, wait times for most of the pavilions were 2-6 hours so we mostly just walked around.


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

More Expo


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)




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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)




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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

2010

And of course Nanjing Dong Lu again


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

And the best way to travel back to the airport... Maglev train 







The Shanghai Maglev demonstration line is a 30km (18mi) mile connector that runs from the airport to one of the subway terminals near the financial zone. Designed by Siemens and capable of reaching a top speed of 268mph and doing the run to the airport in under 7 minutes.  They only allow full speed at certain limited times per day due to noise issues however and when I rode it we only hit 180.

There were plans at one point to connect this thing all the way to Beijing but I believe that's been scrapped. Not many people ride it.


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## ScotO (Sep 18, 2012)

very neat pictures, J!  I'm by no means (not even remotely) a city person, never been to a bigger city than Philly or Pittsburgh, but I am amazed at the architecture and engineering.  I really like that mag-lev train, something that has been contemplated through PA but never came to fruition......thanks for sharing your pics.


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## bioman (Sep 18, 2012)

Cool pics amazing pics & enginering.


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## jharkin (Sep 18, 2012)

I understand the feeling Scotty, when it comes to the city I'm a visit but wouldn't want to live their kinda guy. Wife and I dream of retiring on an old colonial farm in VT or such.


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## fossil (Sep 18, 2012)

Asia is fascinating.  I've never been to China, but during my Navy career I visited Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea all many times, along with other Pacific destinations like Thailand, Philippines, Australia, and others.  I did get to Taipei, Taiwan once, as well.  Your photos bring back memories...the architecture over there in the modern cities is fascinating, as are the people and the food.  There are a few places I visited in Asia I might actually pay my own money to revisit, although there are many more I wouldn't.  Rick


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## potter (Sep 18, 2012)

Thanks for posting. I've heard the museums in Shanghai are some of the best in China. My favorite times in China have been in smaller cities and neighborhoods, walking around. Shanghai looks expensive, as Beijing is. Lovely people, more like us than many think.


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## Jags (Sep 19, 2012)

Wow - thanks for sharing.  Love the architecture.  But I gotta admit - the pic of that dish even got a little "eerp" from my leather lined, cast iron, heat loving stomach.


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## jharkin (Sep 19, 2012)

Sounds like we have some very well traveled hearth'ers. Potter, Fossil - sounds like you guys have seen a lot. Ive only had the pleasure to travel over there 4 times (all on works dime - 2x Shanghai, 2x India).

I definitely found that the people I interacted with lead much more similar lives to us than many Americans would suspect. Same hopes and dreams, same mundane issues of everyday life. But OTOH most of the folks I dealt with are middle class technical professionals, life for the large populations in poverty over there is a different story.

Speaking of which that's one big difference I see between China and India. In India the poverty is everywhere - you might have a shanty town right next to a modern office tower and the roads and  shared infrastructure are a mess; whereas in China there are modern rich areas well separated from the poor areas.


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## potter (Sep 19, 2012)

jharkin said:


> Sounds like we have some very well traveled hearth'ers. Potter, Fossil - sounds like you guys have seen a lot. Ive only had the pleasure to travel over there 4 times (all on works dime - 2x Shanghai, 2x India).
> 
> I definitely found that the people I interacted with lead much more similar lives to us than many Americans would suspect. Same hopes and dreams, same mundane issues of everyday life. But OTOH most of the folks I dealt with are middle class technical professionals, life for the large populations in poverty over there is a different story.
> 
> Speaking of which that's one big difference I see between China and India. In India the poverty is everywhere - you might have a shanty town right next to a modern office tower and the roads and shared infrastructure are a mess; whereas in China there are modern rich areas well separated from the poor areas.


Democracy is always a little less tidy. Much easier for China to force large scale development projects, for better or worse.


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## jharkin (Sep 19, 2012)

potter said:


> Democracy is always a little less tidy. Much easier for China to force large scale development projects, for better or worse.


 
Quite true, and I believe they still have that residency registration system in China  - i forget what its called -  that prevents people in rural areas from moving into cities to keep things segregated.


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## jharkin (Sep 19, 2012)

Oh interesting true story... Every day I would take a taxi from hotel to the office in the morning. There is a large parking/reception area in front of the lobby where taxi's pull up.

One day during the week we get there and the reception area is all roped out and guys in black suits are standing there turning the taxis away.  So I get out on the street and have to walk through this special lane around the side to get in.  I go upstairs, everything as normal and then I asked whats up....

One guess...


The local communist party was meeting in the building. Trade Union representatives from all the local companies had been "summonsed" to attend. They were all told that due to the dispute over the Daioyu/Senkaku islands all travel permits to Japan were being cancelled, and of course were encouraged not to be friendly to Japanese businesses, etc.


If I posted this while I was still there my internet would probably have been shut off, at minimum.


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## fossil (Sep 19, 2012)

That _is_ interesting.


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## Eatonpcat (Sep 20, 2012)

Beautiful city, But that is a lot of people!  Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the pictures.


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## begreen (Sep 23, 2012)

Very interesting thread jh, thanks for posting.


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## Frozen Canuck (Nov 10, 2012)

Yes, thanks for the pics & info Jeremy. Some great sites to be sure. Many similiarities to North America. Interesting to see the differences as well. Good call on waiting to get home to post. No point rolling the dice when there is nothing to win & a great deal to potentially lose.


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## woodchip (Nov 10, 2012)

Thanks for sharing.

Well worth waiting for........


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## jharkin (Sep 15, 2013)

Dig this one up for a follow up. I went back this fall and they are still working on that new building, to be called simply the Shanghai Tower. They reached the max height of 2074 ft and are now glassing it in. It will be the sedond tallest building in Asia. The locals tell me it will open next year, I might be able to check it out next time I go.

We could sit and watch those cranes go all day from the office windows, fascinating.


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## jharkin (Sep 15, 2013)

In related news, American Airlines has become truly horrible. One plane broke down causing a 5 hour delay. Another lost a piece of trim from the left wing in flight ( not amusing). Third had broken video and inoperative reading lights... For 13 hours!

Only one flight out of four made it without issues.

Stupid office travel department always books us on the cheapest. I should a known....


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## begreen (Sep 15, 2013)

I learned long ago to pay a bit more and go with the best for very long flights. Asiana, Thai and Singapore airlines get a big thumbs up. Last flight to Europe was on Air France and that too was very nice.


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## jharkin (Sep 15, 2013)

When traveling for work we don't have that option unfortunately.


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## begreen (Sep 15, 2013)

Maybe ask if you can upgrade if you pay the difference?


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## jharkin (Sep 16, 2013)

begreen said:


> Maybe ask if you can upgrade if you pay the difference?



Ive tried. Company policy is you cant choose a flight any more than a certain dollar amount (couple hundred bucks I believe) more than the cheapest avalable, and they wont let you split the cost.  you can buy a ticket and upgrade it yourself afterward directly through the airline, but no way am I paying cash for a business class upgrade! I have paid for economy plus seats before on Delta and United, but AAs rickety old first gen 777-200s dont offer them.  Next time I'll try to pick my flying dates better so I can at least get on Delta...

15 years ago we used to get to fly business on any leg over 6 hours.. But the dot com crash killed that along with many other bennies 

As far as Asian carriers...  I know a couple professional pilots that refuse to fly on Asia/pac airlines due to safety records... Apparently that Asiana 777 crash (when they thought they were on full autoland, but had the autothrottle disabled and stalled it) was just an accident waiting to happen for many of those carriers - pilots over there are much more reliant on cockpit automation than US (and possibly European) pilots and dont get even a fraction of the practice time doing it the manual way that US pilots do and culturally if the command pilot makes a goof the rest of the crew wont question it even if they know something is wrong.... And when the automation fails they dont have a lot of practice taking over manually to recover.


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