Neeehow! Shanghai was such a great experience, especially thanks to my friend Dan who introduced me to some pretty cool peeps in the ad agency world of Shanghai and showed me around town. We hit the ground running, dinners, house parties, and new friends. I always prefer to travel to places where I know people because you get to see a totally different side of a city. I stayed in a little botique hotel in the French Concession called Gallery Suites, and was pretty much in the mix of the coolest area with all the art galleries, shops, boutiques, etc. The FC is older colonial style buildings, and very cool. The taxi’s are cheap, starting at $2, and typically hit $4, maybe $6 if you go across town. Makes it really easy to get around town, the trick is to get someone to write your destination in Chinese and you’re usually good to go. The city itself was modern world meets chaotic developing world. I borrowed a friends bike for a spin around the French Concession, and soon realized that I felt it easier and safer to weave in and out of traffic in New York City. There are so many people on bikes, moped, cars etc, and they all come at you from every direct direction. No flow. People on mopeds will head straight down your lane right at you then veer off at the last second. Nutty experience.
My new friend Ryan, and AD at Wieden Kennedy SH introduced me to their experience Shanghai iPhone app, which helped guide me around a little. Some cool eats, shops, things to do etc, with Taxi Cards built right in so you just show the cab driver. We all hit a few parties Saturday night, but namely one at a cool surfer/skater shop called Source, where they featured this really amazing artist, Steve Gorrow who is also the creative director of Insight clothing. Here’s a little recap of the party from Source’s blog. I really loved his work. Sunday we went to a little water town an hour out of SH, which was lovely. See the pics below.
Checked out the Bund, SH’s skyline as you can see from the above photo on Monday, quite a nice view. Then saw the “light tunnel” which is overly cheesy which makes it quite amusing. Headed over to old town which is obviously overly touristy, but fun none the less. The old Chinese buildings are a great sight. Used the WKSH app to get myself to this amazing little hole in the wall Shanghai Dumpling joint; Ling Long Fang, which have to be the best I’ve ever had, along with the wanton soup, amazing. Pulled off a little fashion shoot around the small old style streets, did a bunch of agency meetings wednesday, and peaced out to Hong Kong thursday, then Taiwan Friday. It’s been non-stop.
It’s been a good trip, and one of my favorites is a few Mandrin words that sound like hip hop slang. Quite funny.
Booyao = I don’t want
jegga = this
negga = that
