August 8th - 16th 2014, Shanghai & Hong Kong ...
Carola has a 3-month assignment with her job at ZF in Shanghai, so we thought this is a good excuse to visit her ... and as Shanghai is close to Hong Kong (and we used HK-based Cathay Pacific to get there) we stopped in Hong Kong on the way back ...
Shanghai (Day 1 Arrival)
Claudia flew as well and we met with Carola at Shanghai Airport on Friday morning. As Thomas wanted to use the Maglev (Transrapid), this was the first thing to do. One of the many examples, why we Germans cannot bring our products to the market ... already during Thomas' studies in the 80s the technology was developed ... how many run in Germany? ZERO ...
Good to see her again after approx. 3 months ... here the two sisters in the Maglev train ...
... and the two of us ... a bit tired ... having some "stressful" days ahead of us ... Carola had planned a "comprehensive" 4-day schedule ... hardly time to sleep or relax ;-)
That was the view from our hotel room ... really ideally located in the centre, close to the underground and a good starting point for all the adventures to come!
Unfortunately, the weather wasn't so good on the first two days, but we went on anyway! Here Thomas' three ladies on Nanjing Road East (where also our hotel was located) ...
Robbing Chinese army warriors ... we always wonder, who buys the stuff ;-)
Here East Nanjing Road again ... as usual in Asia, masses of people of course!
Just at the entrance of People's Park MTR, we had this photo taken of the four of us with the shopping strip behind us ...
After wandering through People's Park, we had a stop at the "Moca" Coffee Shop there (tip from the travel guide). Because of the weather, the terrace was closed, but due to Carola's excellent Chinese Language Skills, the "crazy Westerners" were allowed outside!
Next stop was the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall ... to give us a quick overview of the development of Shanghai ... past and present ... Here's one photo of Claudia and a figure ... it would be too embarassing to tell you guys how many of those Thomas had to take ;-)))
In that centre was a HUGE and impressive model of the city of Shanghai (see the people at the end of the picture!) ... it's permanently updated, whenever a building is changed ... we've never seen anything like this before ... good light show too ...
Here an "aerial" view of it from the floor above ...
Before going for dinner, we had the "pre-dinner-drink-ceremony" at the bar of the hotel ... Tsingtao beer for Thomas (one has to keep the money together) and cocktails for the ladies ...
Then we had a "long" walk to the restaurant ... first it was only 3-4 blocks according to Carola ... it turned out that it was around 10 ... here the two of us in front of "Bund", the shoreline of Shanghai ...
Carola introduced us to the fantastic restaurant "Lost Heaven", where we had the "official" birthday dinner for Thomas ... it was Carola's gracious birthday present (thanks to her again!) ... as a caring father, Thomas ordered one bowl of rice and four sets of chopsticks ... ;-)
Walking back to the hotel, we could take these photos ... still many old buildings there ...
... and Carola and Claudia at the Bund ... Pearl Tower in the background ...Shanghai (Day 2 Super-Guided Tour)
After a short night, we started early in the rain ... first project was to get an umbrella each ... about 3 Euros and they lasted approx. one day per Euro spent ;-)))
Carola could get her colleague Chris to join us on Saturday (!) morning to show us around. First stop this morning was the Jade Buddha Temple ... many people there ...
If you do your prayers, you might need some help from your spouse ...
Impressive Buddha figures everywhere ... you turned around or entered another building ... more to be found!
Buddhism and modern technology are NOT a contradiction in terms ...
Here's a photo of us together with Chris ... it was amazing that a) she spent her free Saturday with us and b) the amount of information she could give us about the temples, the history and buddhism ...
We went to a second temple, the Jing-An temple. Even bigger and in the middle of new high-rise buildings ... capitalism works quite well everywhere in Shanghai ... the entrance fees were not "cheap" at all ...
Walking a lot in the wet required fresh band-aids for the feet ;-)))
And we saw many examples of say "exotic fashion taste" ... we could start a separate website about that ;-)))
We had a few stops in Starbucks for drinks (it was hot and humid despite the rain) ... every restaurant in Shanghai is checked once a month for hygiene ... this one only achieved a "pass" in July ....
Then we had superb dumplings in the Din Tai Fung Restaurant ... behind a glass wall you could watch the staff preparing the great food ... when they saw Thomas with the camera ... this was the reaction!
Here the five of us again in this restaurant ... really awesome food!
Then we walked through the district of Xintiandi, old buildings there ... and the museum of the communist party, which was free (!). Photography was not allowed there. After Thomas saw two locals taking photos with their smartphones in front of the guards, he picked his camera too, but you can guess what happened then ...
Here's an impressive building in the French Concession Quarters ...
... where we took this picture ... now we were six ... another colleague of Carola's joined us, Hao Jie. Again thanks for your wonderful hospitality!!!
After more hours of walking, we ended our guided tour in the afternoon in a coffee shop ... relaxing our feet and "refilling" the sweat we lost during the day ...
Before we went for dinner we took this picture of East Nanjing Road at night from the 7th floor terrace of the hotel ...
... and we had pre-dinner drinks again ... this time Carola ordered a Martini ... this photo shows the smallest Martini on the rocks ever ... it's the one between the Schnaps Glass and the tiny Tsingtao beer bottle ;-)))
To continue with "smallest" extremes: We went for dinner to a typical chinese restaurant (no English speaking at all) and asked for a wine ... they only had two sorts, so we went for the local white wine. Unfortunately not cooled down, so we asked for an ice bucket ... well that's what we got! But we managed to cool it down a bit ...Shanghai (Day 3 Extensive Sight-Seeing)
Next day, Sunday, we started off at People's Park again for the "Parents Marriage Market" ... so what's that?
As most of the young people between 20-40 are far too busy with work than looking for a partner, their parents go out on Sundays to advertise their kids, then discuss the possibilities with the other parents and then arrange a blind date between the two prospective "partner" ... Yes it's true! Masses and masses of people with their "ads" bound to umbrellas ...
We even found this ad in English from Melbourne ...
... interesting part is, that the text (Carola translated) reads like car ads, age, height, degrees, hair colour etc., but nothing about feelings or love ... well it's different to our culture ...
Next stop was the old village of Qibao, beautiful old houses ... and many many more people who had the same idea on that Sunday ;-)
Capitalism, part II: As long as there's a profit, "Eastern art" and "Western idols" can be combined easily ... ;-)
Smoking is still very popular everywhere, even in restaurants ...
Here the four of us on one of the bridges in Qibao ...
... and more impressions of Qibao ...
While waiting for the women, Thomas could capture some scenes ... lunch for this little boy ...
... and when the poodle looses one of his shoes (he can hardly walk in), it's a difficult procedure to put it back on!
After that we used the opportunity to visit Carola's appartment ... good to see, where she lives. It's close to the MTR and the shuttle bus to work ... nice giraffe stickers on the wall ;-)
Then we had lunch at Carola's "home restaurant" where she lives ... the lady there was very excited to have four (!) visitors from far away ...
... and cooked a really good meal for us ... the best part ... all in all we payed 12 Euros for the whole thing ...
Do I have to say more? There's no difference between 13 and 23 years of age ...
In the afternoon we went on the other side of the river to Pudong. One of the many skycrapers there is the Pearl Tower ...
As Carola made a tour recently with an architect (oops) ... she knew that floor here, where we could take this picture ...
Further on we went to another plaza, where three of those amazing buildings could be seen: The Jinmao building, the Shanghai Tower (still under construction) and the World Financial Tower ... Thomas was lying on the ground with the wide angle lense for that picture ;-))
Then - without scrupels - we made our way to the lobby floor of the Jinmao Building to have a look down the Atrium ... again amazing!
To finish the afternoon we went to the "Flair bar" in the Ritz-Carlton, where - contrary to the Hyatt - we were nicely welcomed ... breathtaking view on Shanghai included ...
That's the four bar stools we could capture ... waiting for the sun to go down and the light show of the Pearl Tower to start at 7pm ...
They had an Erdinger there, which broke Thomas' record of "Most-expensive-Erdinger-World-Wide" ... so long it was at a South Bank bar in Melbourne (~ 14 Euros) ... this here was around 18 Euros ... you only live once ;-)
Getting dark, Claudia took this picture of the "Penicillin" Drink, which she and Cynthia really liked ... a special from the Ritz-Carlton ... btw. after one staff member found out that we were from Germany, the food and beverage manager Ellen Franke came to us and we had a really nice chat with her!
Finally the light show began and this is one of the many pictures Thomas took ... a long-term exposure of approx. 15 seconds ...
This here is a 2-second exposure ... we tried not to move ... fantastic experience and a good recommendation for the Ritz-Carlton!Shanghai (Day 4 Old Parts of Town)
Last day started with the old town areas ... buildings are really well kept ... after breakfast there ...
... we went to the Yu Yuan Gardens built by someone rich a long time ago ... do you really need details? ;-)))
Impressive monuments everywhere ... here another half-dragon on a wall ...
Three days of extensive walking had some impact on Thomas ... slight coordination problems ... Cynthia is checking her handbag for a gun to shoot the old horse ...
Here another picture of the ladies in the old part of town ...
On we went to the Bund, but this time we took a boat trip to see the town from another perspective ... here the Pudong Side ...
... and here the city side of it. Let's hope, that these wonderful old buildings are not broken down and replaced by modern boring buildings ...
OK another one ... Miss Lemon herself ...
Another good viewpoint was this little bridge with Pudong in the background ...
... where of course everyone needed a picture of the "me and the city"-type ... and someone with extensive energy had to jump the picture ... but this is the advantage if you have a fast SLR camera ... they think you cannot get them ... ;-)))
We had a further walk through these old quarters ... nobody knows how long they will be there ...
... including a whole bicycle repair shop at the corner of a street ... ;-)
Our last night's dinner was at a Teppanyaki Place (Name: 57°) ... really good food (a bit too spicy) ... here the cook with us ...
This is bacon on an aluminium foil ... flambé in front of us ...
Suddenly loud music started and a "gangnam"-style show of the cooks took place ... really good choreography and dancing ... we would have expected everything but this!
;-))) no words ... Well, four "stressful" but eventful days were over. Carola put together a fantastic program, we have seen so much of this interesting city and we can only recommend a visit there!
Monday night Claudia flew back to Germany, whereas we two headed to Hong Kong on Tuesday morning ...
Hong Kong
Well we arrived safely in Hong Kong, took the "usual" bus to our hotel, but unfortunately the weather wasn't good the first two days ... heavy rain as you can see on the photo ..."Old" Hong Kong residents might remember the place: The taxis (middle left) were once in front of the star ferry pier ... long time ago ...
As we both had a bit of problems with the Shanghai food afterwards, we had our first "authentic" dinner on day 3 ... here in the restaurant "Red Pepper", an old Szechuan Classic in Hong Kong ... sizzling prawns in chilli sauce ... yummy!Unfortunately our favourite restaurant "Cheung Kee" in Wanchai closed down two years ago ... the rental costs just went crazy there ...
On day 4 we decided to go up to the Peak, as we had one of those clear days ... you get maybe 3-5 a year ... the city changes a lot again ...
Here Cynthia on the peak with Kowloon in the background ...
Of course a Hong Kong visit is not complete without visiting Discovery Bay ... here the ferry coming back ... one thing that hasn't changed ... it's as cold as ever inside the ferry ... ;-)))
Discovery Bay Plaza ... with advertising for a new development there called "Positano" ... Italian names now the fashion ... DB basically doubled in size with the DB-North Plaza, Club, Hotel, etc etc
We went to the German restaurant "Berliner" at DB Plaza to have another Erdinger there ...
On the way back to Central we caught a glimpse of DB North ... just amazing everywhere in Hong Kong how much construction work is going on ... and we Germans cannot even build a single airport ;-)))
Here Tsing Ma Bridge from the DB Ferry ... the visibility was fantastic that day ...
Here more construction in front of the IFC building ... Wanchai / Causeway Bay in the background ...Another Story: There's basically noone anymore in HK, who isn't permanently looking on his smartphone ... in the MTR, while walking, doesn't matter, they live in their virtual world. But on the MTR escalators there is a new safety announcement: "Use the handrail and don't always look on your mobile phones" ... really true!
Last night, Red Pepper again ... here the sizzling prawns ... yummy, but around 35 Euros for this portion ... it's not cheap anymore ...
... but the food there was worth the price ... some sweet and sour chicken added ...
After dinner we had some last drinks at Delaneys in Wanchai (still there!) ... one of the constants!Finally a panorama shot of Hong Kong, seen from the Peak on that clear day:
Well, Hong Kong hasn't changed so much from 1999 (when Thomas left) to 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2009 / 2011, the years when we visited again.
But the change from 2011 to 2014 is drastic, obviously because of the ridicilous rental prices. Delifrance in Queensway Plaza - gone ... Cheung Kee Restaurant - gone ... Chinese Arts & Craft Star House - moved and ridicilous prices ... anyway, times are changing.
We had a safe flight back home from Hong Kong ... let's see when we'll be there next!