Chinese New year is celebrated on 17-18 feb, and here it is a week long break. So we(I and Vikram, he is the only fellow Indian i have with me in this city) dicided, to go out for some trip and planed for Beijing-Shangahi trip.
Day-1 : 17-Feb
We checked out of the hotel at 7:00 AM, to catch the flight. Flight was at at 8:40. We reached beijing at 09:40. But we were a bit confused whether we must take a 2 day break at beijing and then go to shanghai or we go to shanghai straight away.
I wanted to go to shanghai and be in Beijing while going back. Vky was thinking the other way. Anyways, because Vky's friend (Sachin) was there in Shanghai so we concluded to go their first.Checking tickets to shanghai, much like a bus ticket(jao aur ticket le lo) we loosers just asked one counter and bought it, didnt even check at different counters for available prices. Boareding the flight for shanghai, I found air hostess to be really(trust me) beautiful, best till date i have seen. We named the best among them as "cute kitten". On reaching Shanghai at 2:40 PM.
Sachin told us the way home - where to board metro, station to get down etc. And there he was to pickup us from the metro station.
At Sachin's house, i had something Indian to eat after 2.5 months(it was like a heavenly feeling)
We kicked off freaking out by visiting people's square. It was quite desserted and lull than it should have been. May be due to spring festival people were at home(this being the last day of chinese calender). Pudong(this river flows through the city) is close by
and after spending some time next to the river we went to the top to get some good view of the place. "M on the Bund" was a open terrace bar, where we spent time waiting for Bipin(Sachin's Friend). He joined us at around 9. By that time we had been doing some picturing
Bipin being the connoisseur of places to visit after sunset to late night suggested for a sports pub, "Melone Americal cafe". Playing darts there we ate some fries and stuff and walked out looking for New year celebrations. The celebrations were gala, with people playing crackers as if it was the last day they can ever play crackers.
Choked of the cracker smoke for more than 1 hour we entered Blue frog, a nice descent place. Watching a white man talking to the mascot of the pub we realized may be its too late and its time to go back.
Day 2 : 18-Feb
We decided to shop some and check out some more places. Bipin suggested going to the science meuseum.
At the science meuseum on checking movie timings we found "Straigh Up helicopters in the action" in "dome theater" would be starting in another 10 minutes. The ticket girl said "i must inform you, the movie is in chinese", so nice of her. But what a dome it was. I have never enjoyed watching a chinese movie so much!! It was worth being part of the science meuseum and not just any cinema hall.
Underneath the meuseum is one of the biggest markets for fake stuff and Vikram utilized it optimally by buying 12 CK Undys. But, the electronic market next to it was closed for new year celebrations. At "Nizang", a nepali restaurant serving Indian food i got what i have been waiting for - Naan, paneer, daal(mmmmm), papad!!Life mein aur kya chahiye?
While looking for the next destination, Bipin recalled they have not taken us to Xintiandi.
With a European built up this place was full of restaurants with german french and italian names. Sachin being a Paulaneer(german beer) fan, we enjoyed Paulaneer in "Paulaneer" and cracked some jokes for about an hour and then started looking for next destination. Based on Bipin's expertise we took the cab for "The House of Blues and Jazz".
If you are a Jazz fan you cannot afford to miss this place. If you are not a Jazz fan, then you must visit this place to find out what Jazz can be(I fall in this category). For three hours the sexophone, the guitar, the drums and the trumpet they played were simply awesome. We did not wanted to leave untill they stop. Sachin is a great Jazz fan and a professional photographer, so it was a wonderful combination for him to get some great pictures. Lots of pictures of House of Blues and Jazz and a better view of Shangahi at
Sachin's Photonet. Bipin wanted to play pool and we both went out for searching some place where we could play pool. I did not inform him of my level of expertise and after my first hit he realised the blunder that was now done. He was more than kind to let me place the white ball as per my wish to somehow make the game go on(but no use). Thank god, vky and Sachin joined us in a shortwhile and Bipin got better players to play with(I was saved of hitting the ball only on the table edges and not to other balls).
Day 3 : 19-Feb
Since we were not able to do electronic shopping previous day so Sachin said may be we can try Xujiahui electronic market.
While going to Xujiahui market we passed through people's square and Sachin took us to a pearl market assuming we might buy some. On enquiring the prices we did not buy some but, we bought many. Vikram - 10. Me - 24.
Prices in electronic mall were impressive which resulted into reckless shopping in the form of an external hard disk, MP3 payer, USB stick, Sony Cybershot T10 and Mobile Phone. Sachin pushed us out of the market stating reasons like mercy on the shopkeepers, ATM machines running out ot money and police raid for smuggling. Our hunger for Indian food was still not satisfied with yesterday's dinner and that led us to this very nice place "Vedas"
Bipin had joined us at Veda's for dinner and now we were waiting for him to come up with the plan for rest.The plan was unfolded in this club "Zapata" where we enter and see 6 whites dancing on the bar counter. Despite reluctance to go beyond the entry gate we decided to hang on for some time and checkout. But, what we considered as hanging for a few minutes became few hours. On the first floor, there were more blondes than i have ever seen at the same place and same time(live). We even met a philipino who asked us "so you guys are also hopping from one place to the other every night, i saw you last night at House of Blues and Jazz". After talking to this guy i found phillipines has similarities to India too. But it was time to leave(2 AM) and Bipin was missing. On calling him we came to know he was at another nearby bar "Cancan" and there we find him with this fat guy from Texas. Before leaving we did not miss out table football and pool at Cancan. Ofcourse even after leaving Bipin was worried about the young girl at cancan because of the bloody American. Finally we hit the sack at 4AM.
Day 4 : 20-Feb
3 days passed by so quickly that we just hung on for one more day and since my apetite for shopping had only grown afetr previous day's shopping, i looted the Xujiahui Market again. After buying one MP3 player Vikram looked happy. In comes my turn and i say 10 MP3 players. The sweet girl only smiled, laughed and brought in more and more boxes. While Sachin was still helping me arrange the mp3 players stuff, I asked the girl for 10 USB sticks. Girl's reaction - smiles and laugh. Sachin's reaction - if he had his way probably he would closed me in some loo and leave me there for a few hours untill i promised not to buy anything more.Since we(I and Vikram) did not wanted to miss out any opportunity of Indian food, and despite Sachin and Bipin's reluctance we went to "Shanghai punjabi Indian Cuisine"
But since it was the last day we planned to make it a little quite and went to "Wa bar", a place where beer in menu was sorted based on its country and even KingFisher was available here
Playing dice game there and looser's turn to drink i kept on drinking, till three of them felt mercy on me and called off for the day. Thank god i was not playing for clothes. We closed the day early evening at 10:30 PM, assuming we would be leaving the next day.
Day 5 : 21-Feb
Sachin just said once "why do you guys have to go today, stay for one more day", and we unpacked our bags like immediately. Now assuming this would be the last day we went to a park and just roamed around the place doing lot of picturing.
Bipin joined us at the meuseum where I did some kiteflying after a few years. But Bipin and Sachin were more than bored of Indian food now and they took us too a pure vegetarian Chinese restaurant(A Unique combination of chinese and vegetarian). It was worth the praise that they both had for it. But, now began hunt for post dinner landing area and we zeroed into "JZ Club". So close we were sitting to the band that i could just jump onto the small podium where the band was directly from my seat. Exiting with just one drink we obviously could not go back so early already having done so last night. Bipin suggested trying "ARK" at Xintiandi. We were told by both of them that they have been told, it is THE place in shanghai. But, Sachin went in and came back telling - it is not "THE" place. So we decided to be at the tried, tested and best place - "The House of Blues and Jazz". It continued to be the best place we had vistied in Shanghai.
Day 6 : 22-Feb
We finally left. For our own welfare and for their welfare.
Statistically:
Number of pubs/bats visted in 5 days - 11
My total consumption of drinks - 10 litres
Home made food - All 5 days(god bless Sachin)
Shopping - ???????
New names i got - Baby(i was the youngest among them), Maggu(thats baby in kannada), smuggler(for looting xujiahui)
But finally baby's day out is over.
For more on the same if you have lots of free time and are interested in reading useless stuff on the net(which you do, if you have reached this point of this post of mine) then you can read much better stuff about this shanghai trip at
Sachin's Spring Festival PostsPS: I am posting too late since i forgot my adapter at Sachin's place. Thanks to Sachin for quickly sending it via post. The welfaare did not happen for us even after leaving.
Last weekend(extended weekend) I was in Mumbai just for a break. Being from Bangalore entering the arrival terminal on Mumbai airport almost felt as if I had traveled a few seas across and reached another country.
Ofcourse GMR(builder of the new mumbai airport) is spending a good time, effort and space to make the travelers realize what it has done. But, it is only adding to the looks of the airport.I do not have pictures of departure longue with me but that was equally good.
Did you ever see a feedback form drop box on any of the Indian airports? Well, I have seen one on Chennai international departure terminal and it was being used properly to dispose of small litter like chewing gum wrappers, shopping bills etc.
