Pictures from Shanghai

I realized just now that a taxi fare receipt can be extremely
valuable. They are getting printed automatically in every taxi here
and contain phone number, registration and all fare details.
I normally don't take them - especially when it's not a big fare.
Today at noon I did - and that was one of the best things ever.

Because I lost my stupid keys in this taxi!

Total panik!

But - called them just now (OK not me because my Chinese is too bad)
and he will come to drop them off soon.

Costs: A normal fare (much cheaper than new keys or even new locks).

Fantastic! :-)

I think from now on I will always take the receipt...

Labels: China, Shanghai

 Rush Hour in Shanghai basically means honking.
The light is read? Honk!
You dislike anything? Honk!
The bus in front of you stops at a bus stop to let people in and out? Honk!
Pedestrian crossing at a green light? Honk! Honk!
A police car in front of you is driving slow (means speed limit)? Honk!

Traffic rules are easy - even if the light is red you can still turn right at FULL speed. For some months now pedestrians have the right of way but nobody cares.
They are now giving out tickets for jaywalking. But still the police doesn't give a sh** when a 40 t truck beats a red light.

Anyway - enjoy the honking:




This ignorance is the reason for all these really bad accidents. Not many accidents happen here (if you think of the traffic situation) but when it happens it is fatal.
Several times drivers of public busses went too fast, ignored red lights or something else. And often people have to die because of that.
I was lucky during the last year...

Labels: China, Shanghai

A nice story about Chinese toilets can be found here.

This is a blog from a guy living in Nanjing (2 to 3 hours by train from Shanghai).

I also still can't get used to these holes in the floor - I really prefer the western toilets. Although some of these here seem to flush with 10 ml of water. :-(

Labels: China, Shanghai

I bought some Joghurt (OK now you wonder about the fascinating topic) - and I wondered a bit about it. This is a German brand which I know quite well.

The outside of the pack is in Chinese (Brand name in German):


But the inside is surprisingly in Russian:


That was the first time ever that I saw something like that - this one is made in Russia and then imported to China. They normally have to pay high import duties but maybe there is a special deal with Russia.
You really never really know what you get here in China... 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Fast Food - good fast food can sometimes save the day. :-)

Now here are plenty of McDonald's and even more KFC (more than 1000 KFC in China afaik). But I can't stand McDonald's anymore - the customers are annoying and the food is not very good. I also have some issues with KFC since I spent some quality time in a little room after lunch (not sure if this was connected but since then I lost the appetite).

So what is left? A local KFC-Copy with a funny Chinese head as a logo and plenty other chains with mixed quality. But last year I got somehow saved - Burger King opened it's FIRST store in whole China. And that was in Shanghai (nearby Jing'an Temple). They bravely opened their first restaurant in this country only 10 years after all the other competitors...

They doubled their number of stores a short time ago and another store is in a food court in People's Square (New World City).

There is currently a promotion running with free upsize/cheese:


As you can see there are three Whopper sizes - "Whopper Xiao" simply means little Whopper. You can also order the Whopper and all other burgers "spicy", like in McDonald's and KFC. Many Chinese wish spicy burgers.

Their restaurants are OK and they even managed the queuing concept as good as possible - but still I don't make it that often to go there.

Another kind of "Fast Food" - another beer brand in China, "Steinlager". Quite nice and not very expensive, but the bottle opener is a bit funny (never had that before).


I'm completely addicted to this stuff here. Coca-Cola is now also doing local manufacturing of Vanilla Coke so that it is now available for a reasonable price. (2.50 RMB / 0.25 Euro)

Before that I had to buy it in the imported food section for at least the double price - but therefore imported from the states. I'm not so sure if they also changed the receipe for this one, because the normal Coke (and also Pepsi) have a lot more sure than normal.


 

Labels: China, Shanghai

This one is going around for quite some time but it is till very cool. It is a video of a guy going crazy in a bus, because a guy tapped him on the shoulder (to ask him to lower his voice during a mobile phone call). This whole thing took place in Hong Kong so it is in Cantonese (but there are English subtitles when it can be translated).

I must honestly say that also many people here enjoy loud phone conversations. I solved this issue with my new In-Ear-Headphones - wounderful music in the metro without any screaming.

I found the whole story here.

Enjoy the 5 minutes of screaming. :-)

Labels: China, Shanghai

That was not intended in this way. :-)

I have been too lazy to check one of my settings so a comment ended up as a post...

As I said earlier a Hooters opened nearby in the Super Brand Mall at the Pudong Bund. I visited it today and it is really interesting - so American but still very Chinese...
So after McDonalds, KFC, PizzaHut, Papa Johns and many other US-Chains finally Hooters is trying to get a bigger share of the market.
It is quite difficult to find it when you go there for the first time - it is on the Bund side of the Super Brand Mall. There is no entrance from inside the mall and there is not any sign (at least I didn't see any). You can easily access it from outside, because they have a direct entrance. You won't get lost searching for it inside the Mall. This happens sometimes to me when I want to visit McDonalds or something else. You can see the shop but the escalators are going in completely different directions...
Whatever - here are three pictures:




Quite nice and big and the prices are OK (.3 l tap beer from 35 RMB on) and the burger is big. It was quite empty when I got there and it didn't get busy later - seems not many people know it is there. So the Hooters Girls were not very busy...

Edit: Their English names are quite interesting - "Hero", "Summer", "Winter" and of course "Jenny". But I totally forgot "Pinky" - she gave me the check. This name reminds me of the comic series "Pinky and the Brain". :-)

Next door "Element Fresh" will open another outlet after several outlets in Shanghai:


They are both not inside the mall so no need to go into this thing - which is very good. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

A lot of (funny) pictures from Shanghai can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyshanghai/

It's a good collection of pictures - I'm currently also thinking about using flickr, but that means some serious picture tagging work is needed for that.

Labels: China, Shanghai

There are 45000 Taxis in Shanghai - but also plenty of buses. The metro system is still not able to cover most areas of the town so buses are the only alternative. Though people that can afford it prefer a taxi.
The quality of bus transport improved a bit over the last months. A new regulation about exhausts made the worst ones vanish.
Still - they are often overcrowded (but cheap - 1 to 2 RMB) and they look really bad.

You can see here a bus with air condition. The ones without aircon are cheaper.


Here another one at the bus stop. As you can see they have plenty of advertisement on the buses - which sometimes seems to be the only thing that keeps that thing together. You can also see here a VW Passat taxi from Dazhong Taxi - one of the very few in town.


The buses are not owned by the town - they are operated by private companies (Dazhong and BaShi are the biggest ones - they also operate taxis). They get these 2 RMB that you have to pay to the conductor. I really wonder how they can make any profit with this, though if you see the buses this must be clear.


This last picture shows the signs at a bus stop. It shows plenty of information about the lines and which company operates the line. Difficult to find out, where this bus goes...


I took only one time a bus, at that was the airport bus.

The worst buses really seem to be gone by now. I had some bad experiences with buses in front of me when I took a taxi through the tunnel. I sometimes was not able to see anything because of the black cloud behind them (some say these are James Bond-Buses). 

Labels: China, Shanghai

... or chaos oh chaos.

The desk is quite small so that the company-laptop doesn't fit on it. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Somehow Picasa doesn't allow me to post more than 4 pictures at a time - this gets annoying. Manual upload is even worse with my internet connection.

So here are two pictures of the new LED light show:



And these are the new lights that will be used for the lightshow on the river:


They (finally) pulled down the ugly advertisement boards - one even forcefully.

Never forget that you are in China:

 

Labels: China, Shanghai

The Pudong side of the Bund is quite nice and not as full as the Puxi side - it is also wider.

You will find here one of the three Paulaner Brauhaus Restaurants in Shanghai. This one has a beer garden with a nice view over the Huangpu and to the Puxi side.


This is the building where the Paulaner is located in. It doesn't look very special - seems all buildings here have a similar style.


There are a few other restaurants and some cafes and a small McDonalds for icecream.

Starbucks Coffee is also here - of course:


This is a night view of the Super Brand Mall and the Shangri-La (Tower A in front, Tower B in the back).

 

Labels: China, Shanghai

This picture is a bit older but still very nice. This way the Bund looks when you look from the Pudong side. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Shanghai always tries to educate their people. For that you can find signs like this one here everywhere in town:


This sign is in the High Tech Area where I work - like the next sign. It is about that this area is an ISO 14000 area, which means that it is ecological nice here...


This last one is part of an advertisement campaign by MasterCard. This campaign shows Chinese on a world tour and they of course also end up somewhere in Germany. According to this picture it is at some kind of beer festival in Bavaria. I have never been in Bavaria (maybe a day or so) so I can't be sure.


Advertisements stay where they are for at least half a year or even longer (I can still see boards with F1 2005 etc.) so I could enjoy this for a very long time... 

Labels: China, Shanghai

This must be brand new - I never saw it before in town:



It displays the current noise level on this street - quite interesting. Though we all know anyway that the noise level is very high - I have difficulties to hear a movie when I leave the window open (no matter how high I turn the volume of the TV).
Picture 1 shows the noise level while the cars were waiting in front of a red light, picture 2 when the light switched to green again. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

My first one on this address :-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mrs. Suha Arafat. <suhawa55caidjkcx@yahoo.com.tr >
Date: 26.05.2006 23:46
Subject: FOR YOUR URGENT ATTENTION
To: Administrator

Dear Friend,
I am MRS. SUHA ARAFAT, the wife of late YASSER ARAFAT,the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris. Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the new Prime Minister. I have even been subjected to physical and psychological torture.

As a widow that is so traumatized, I have lost confidence with everybody in the country at the moment.You view this website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3965541.stm.You must  have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the discovery  of some fund in my husband secret bank account and companies and the allegations of some huge sums of money deposited by my husband in my name of which I have refuses to disclose or give up to the corrupt Palestine Government.

In fact the total sum allegedly discovered by the Government so  far is in the tune of about $6.5 Billion Dollars. And they are not relenting on their effort to make me poor for life. As you know, the  Muslem community has no regards for woman, more importantly when the woman is from a Christian background, hence my desire for a foreign assistance.

I have deposited the sum of Fourty-Three million dollars with a Diplomatic Security firm in Europe whose name is withheld for now until we open proper and full communication.I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund into your bank account for safe keeping and any Investment opportunity.

This arrangement should be known to you and I alone and all our correspondence should be strictly on email alone because our government has tapped all my lines and are monitoring all my moves.

In view of the above,if you are willing to assist for our mutual benefits, we will have to negotiate on your Percentage share of the $43,000, 000.00 that will be  kept in your possession for a while and invested in your name for my trust pending when my Daughter,Zahwa,will come off age and take full responsibility of her Family Estate/inheritance.

Please note that this is a golden opportunity that comes once in life time and more so, if you are honest, I am going to entrust more funds in your care as this is one of the legacy we keep for our children.

In case you don't accept please do not let me out to the security and international media as I am giving you this information in total trust and confidence I will greatly appreciate if you accept my proposal in good faith.

Please expedite action. And you can reach me anytime on my private email (suhafamily77@aim.com)

Yours sincerely,

Mrs.Suha Arafat

I also took a video of the Shanghai-Model in the Urban Planning Musuem:

Labels: China, Shanghai

A video of the taxi ride last night - but the quality is very bad (mobile phone). I'll try to upload a better one soon where you can see the traffic...

Labels: China, Shanghai

Also in the Urban Planning Museum a model of the Shanghai Pudong Airport can be found. The first picture shows Terminal 1 (in use - front), Terminal 2 (under construction - back) and Terminal 3 (in the middle - planned).


This picture shows the Terminals S1 and S2 - I don't know when they will be built. According to the information in the museum the whole airport should be finished in 2015. Also under construction is currently the second runway.


This is a plan of the whole airport in the year 2015:


In between Terminal 1 and 2 is the Maglev Station and the future Metro station. The extension of the metro (Line 2) to Pudong Airport could be started sometime this year (didn't see anything happen until now). Another extension of Line 2 to Hongqiao Airport will be finished this year. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

This is the status of the construction site as of Saturday:




You can see that they attach the glass walls now and they also built three double elevators at the side of the tower. The advantage of them is that you now can see the number of floors. ;-)

Another project just started construction this month:


These twin towers are developed by a company from Hong Kong and will be ca. 210 meters high. They will be also next to the Jin Mao building. Seems they want to build all high towers on one place - no idea why. Is there any reason for that? 

Labels: China, Shanghai

I visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum on Saturday. They show some pictures etc. about the history of the city in the 1. floor and they have a temporary exibithion in the 2. floor. Really interesting is only the 3. and 4. floor, where you can see a model of Shanghai:


This is really astonishing and it gives you a good possibility to check if the building you live in will be demolished soon (they also show future buildings).

I live in this area next to the Jin Mao tower and the future World Financial Center (the silver tower). My apartment is in one of the residential buildings behind these small office buildings directly at the riverside:


This is a view of the future Expo 2010 site in Shanghai - it will be on both sides of the river after the Nanpu Bridge. They are currently relocating the residents of this area so nothing really exists at the moment.


Another view of my home area. The big silver tower with the hole in the top is the World Financial Center. This is currently under construction and it is at around 40 floors high. I will add some pictures of the real tower later.

 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Some things I learned during the last days:

- If you see a construction site - watch up!

It is a good idea to build some protection for pedestrians on the pavement. It is also OK when this is some kind of roof. But it is a bad idea to build that in a height that can be reached easily by the construction workers - this is not a good height for me.

Did you ever walk 200 meters and you had to duck every 3 meters? It gets annoying after the third time you have to duck.

So why all this here? They are currently renovating the whole area where I live (core development area). The first construction site built this "roof" in a height of 2 meters. The second one started doing something similar on Friday but with changing heights from 1.90 meters to 1.80 meters. I am 1.85 meters tall. :-(

The only good thing is that this is my way to work and back every day. One second - is that something good?

I'll be searching for alternatives now.

Alternative: Have to walk on the other side of the road - takes me some minutes longer.

- Don't run into the metro!

One time I was in a hurry to enter the metro. I felt some pain when I entered the carriage and I wondered why...

The reason? I forgot to duck as I have to do every time I enter or leave the metro. :-( The exit has a height of at around 1.80 meters. Be aware of this when you go to China!

- Watch up when you sit in a bus or plane!

I'm sitting in the company shuttle bus and sit relatively comfortable - I still have some space left for my knees. This changes as soon as the person in front of me retracts the seat - then I'm stuck.

The same applies to planes - there I have to put out any magazines and stuff to not get stuck.

Edit: Picture added

Labels: China, Shanghai

There are two Skyscrapers with video screens on the Pudong side of the Bund in Shanghai - the "Aurora" and the "citigroup". Basically their whole front is a video screen, which is quite impressive. This video shows them "In Action". Sorry for the shaking but it was cold it I didn't have a tripod with me:



Nearly all lights on the Bund are turned off at 11 pm to conserve energy so don't get there too late if you want to enjoy the view. It gets quite boring after 11.

Labels: China, Shanghai

I'm currently trying YouTube and I uploaded a video of the - until now - biggest ship I saw there:

Labels: China, Shanghai

There are plenty of wedding cars on the road during the weekend. It is important to impress so the bigger the better. :-)

Normally they use a VW Passat or maybe a Mercedes S-Class for that but this one is rare.

Behind the car is the corporate showroom of Shanghai General Motors (Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac).

Labels: China, Shanghai

Labels: China, Shanghai

We went to the Beer Fest House tonight:



They have a house brewery for light and dark beer (German style) and all the brewing equipment is imported from Germany. With that they serve typical Shanghainese food - not very cheap but still OK.
The beer is nice and much cheaper than in the Paulaner Brauhaus. They also have a Phillipino band from 8 pm on (though we didn't stay so long). The atmosphere is quite nice and the people are in a good mood.

I have been there before for the farewell party of one of my foreign coworkers.

We walked a bit on the Bund (wei tan) to get to the ferry station. This ferry costs 2 RMB and takes us nearby our home (shorter walk than from the metro station).


This shows the maximum and current number of passengers. It was a not so busy time so only a vew people took this ferry. The weekend is much busier and also the non-tourist ferry is busier.

There is another ferry which simply crosses the river and this one costs 0.5 RMB. Disadvantages are that it has no windows (very cold in the winter) and that you have to stand.

For these 2 RMB of the "tourist ferry" you get a nice view of the Puxi and Pudong side of the Bund:



Edit: I'm not sure why some pictures are not displayed in the post - something must have gone wrong last night. Anyway you can see the pictures when you click on the red "x". ;-)
I will try to fix this tonight.

Labels: China, Shanghai

Papa Johns opened a new outlet nearby my apartment. Good new for me because they also deliver for free - perfect for food emergencies.
Their pizza is one of the few quite decent ones in Shanghai. Also their prices are not totally crazy. Pizza Hut for example is extremely oily and too cheesy here. The "Italian" delivery chains here have not very nice ones (at least the ones that deliver in my area).

I only have one problem with Papa Johns - I'm addicted to their garlic sauce. Though I often have problems after using this sauce (have to spend some time in the little room with the white tiles) I can't stop eating it. Quite astonishing for me is the variety of this sauce - it sometimes is thin as water and sometimes it is thick like a paste.

Does anyone know anything about this sauce? I really think it would be better for me to stop using it but I can't. :-(


There are also plenty other restaurants in this building - this is a food court with four floors. There is also a nice Korean Barbecue restaurant (Pankoo) in there, which is also in Raffles City (Peoples Square).

Completely different topic: Hooters will open it's second outlet in Shanghai - and this one will also be nearby my apartment. Opening is this friday. :D
You will find it somewhere in the Super Brand Mall. The first outlet is somewhere in Hongqiao on the other end of the city.
 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Labels: China

Labels: China, Shanghai

Most people have a car in this city (giant traffic jams!) and the buses are private without any bus stops etc.

They have a somehow given route and you jump on and off (not me though). If it is a busy time the roof is likely to be full:

As a bonus two other typical means of transport for goods of all kinds:

I'm currently searching for some nice examples from China. You won't find a donkey cart in Shanghai though.

I have been in Karachi in January this year and they have an excellent public transport system (means it doesn't exist). Nice taxis though:



Was a nice time there - though you can basically only stay in the hotel or in the office. The company had a car and driver so that I didn't have to use one of these wonderful taxis.

Sadly the hotel has been bombed three weeks after I stayed there so it is a bit difficult to go back (it was a fortress when I stayed there - wonder how it looks like now). The bomb actually targeted a guy entering the US Consulate next door...

I will post some pictures of the buses driving there soon.

Two pictures from Saturday night from the new club Minx in Pier One. This club is nearby Suzhou Creek, a "little" river through the Puxi side of Shanghai.

The picture quality is not very good because I took them with my mobile phone.

The club proudly announced that they have a custom made sound system from a famous company. I know now that it can be quite loud because I couldn't hear that much during the whole Sunday. Thanks for that...

Upstairs is a lounge named Monsoon with a big balcony etc. Quite nice but the view was not very special (at least in my opinion - I have a better view at home).

Nice club but far outside, expensive (100 RMB entrance fee on the opening night!) and too loud for me. Can get that better and cheaper downtown (hopefully).

Labels: China, Shanghai

Nice little video:



Found at the Taxi-Blog.

Labels: China, Shanghai

Garden again. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Another pool 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Garden 

Labels: China, Shanghai

View of the towers at dusk. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

And a lot of green 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Nice pools 

Labels: China, Shanghai

High Towers 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Road in front of our building - view to the clubhouse. On the left is the office of the CPC. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

View from the main balcony 

Labels: China, Shanghai

We live in the 20th floor - we can see the lobby from our small balcony. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Views in the compound 

Labels: China, Shanghai

I used the wrong subdirectory for the feed and the archive. I fixed that just now.

 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Rainy weekend = a lot of DVD's. I visited just now my favorite DVD shop here around the corner. I needed to stock up on interesting TV-Shows. 

Labels: China, Shanghai

Laoshan Mountain is a very famous moutain nearby Qingdao. It is especially famous for it's water, which is used for Tsingtao beer and the Laoshan Mointain bottled water. It is also famous for it's green tea, which you can find growing at the foot of the mountain.
This is the taxi ;-) that took us up there. We decided to skip the idea with the public bus when we saw a completely packed bus (which you can see in the back). The whole ride of more than one hour cost us 60 RMB, because these poor guys don't get paid for waiting in traffic jams (that is different in other cities). We had the crazy idea to go here during the public holiday and quite some other people (mostly Chinese, I was one of the few foreigners) had the same idea.


We drove to one cable car station and had lunch there. After that we of course took the cable car. You can see how many people are actually waiting for a bus to get back off the mountain again:


A fantastic view from the cable car (we had to wait one hour for the ride):


There were more people waiting for a ride back with the cable car so we decided to skip that and walk back down:


That took us one hour but we sadly took the wrong way and didn't end up at the cable car station. After one ride with a "private" taxi and some walking and frustrating asking we finally got home. It is simply impossible to fit 300 people into one bus so we gave up. The taxi drivers waiting up there all wanted to rip off passengers (of course - you have no choice). 

Labels: China

Some more taxis in Qingdao. This one here has a fascinating exhaust. The general condition of taxis in this city is really bad, but therefore they are cheaper than in other cities. You can also rent more expensive taxis (10 RMB instead of 7 RMB base fare).


A Citroen ZX (manufactured by another Joint Venture) as a taxi. Condition is also not very good.


A "Chery", model something and behind this one a newer Jetta. Chery is owned by SAIC, which is the Joint Venture partner of Volkswagen in Shanghai. This car here is made under licence from Volkswagen/Seat. This is an old version of the Seat Toledo. It is quite decent to sit but it is still an old car.


I'm not so sure about this one - I saw it for the first time ever in China and it seems to be the only one in town:


A little remark - taxis in China have a decent taxi computer with a built in receipt printer that prints automatically as soon as the driver "flags" it up again. You can be sure that it works correctly as long as it is no illegal taxi. In Shanghai you can also use your public transportation card to pay for the taxi ride, which is very comfortable.
This way you're not giving a tip though but no driver expects a tip. Some even look at you very strange when you don't want the 1 RMB coin. 

Labels: China

Taxis in China are very important - they are very cheap and normally easily available. Especially foreigners prefer taxis because buses are packed with people. I have no choice anyway - I have no Chinese drivers licence.
You can see the standard taxi here in the middle - the "Shanghai Volkswagen" Santana. This model is still available (from 70000 RMB on). In the back you can see one of the up-to-date buses...


Another Santana in front of the "Carrefour" (one of the biggest supermarket chains in China). Taxis don't have the same colour but they have a corporate identity. Dark red taxis are private taxis that are not driving for a taxi company. This seems to be a similar concept in all Chinese cities, though the "red" changes from town to town.


This is the "First Automotive Works Volkswagen" Jetta. This model is also quite old - they refurbished the Jetta last year (basically modified a bit the outside). The Jetta is more common as a taxi in Qingdao than it is in e. g. Shanghai (which is clear due to the fact that the Santana is manufactured in Shanghai). The Jetta should also be a bit cheaper than a Santana 3000, which is the current version.


The inside with the driver protection bar. They are of course useless when you sit in front. Most taxis in Shanghai have a plastic cage around the driver (which can be problematic when you want to sit in fron).

 

Labels: China

We went to the Korean Town in Qingdao (with a taxi of course) when I saw a big chaos on the street and a lot of discussing people. You can see the reason on these pictures:





The bus got actually quite nicely stuck - but luckily just before the bridge. Still there was no way to get out of there. :-) As usual a lot of people were discussing and a big chaos around:

 

Labels: China

Labels: China, Shanghai

Labels: China, Qingdao, Vacation

# posted by Cheffe @ 5/07/2006 07:51:00 AM 0 comments links to this post