China's City of Lights

Flight arrived on time at the Shanghai airport. This place is massive. It's new and clean in a massive, sterile kind of way. I went through customs pretty quickly, but there was some hesitation from the officer because I was a good 20 lbs heavier in my passport photo.

Doug, my high school buddy and co-founder of Tour-Ing.com picked me up. We headed into town to drop stuff off at the hotel. Shanghai is massive. It has double the skyscrapers of New York City, and they're still building. Most of it looks new with much of the expansion occurring within the past 20 years. Next to the glimmering buildings, I saw pockets of former concessions from the Spanish and the French. These village nooks look like European promenades with cobblestone roads and dotted with outdoor cafes, restaurants, clothing stores, and art shops.

Below is Nanjing Dong Lu (Nanjing East Street), the busiest shopping street in China, if not the world. It too has foreign architectural influences, namely from the British.

Place was pretty packed with domestic and foreign stores abound. Per Doug, all these Chinese people are tourists from elsewhere in the country since Shanghainese wouldn't frequent this part of town. We visited a Nike store. Similar to what you'd find in the States, but all the USA stuff is obviously China stuff and there's a big emphasis on basketball. Surprisingly Nike and other foreign brands are often marked up above and beyond US prices.

Nanjing Dong Lu leads to the Bund, a water promenade adjacent to the Huang Pu river and popular for views of the Shanghai skyline.

The building with the orbs is the Pearl Oriental Tower and the World Financial Center building is the one that looks like a bottle opener and the second tallest building in the world.

All the walking called for a coffee break and we headed to a nearby Dunkin Donuts. We both just got coffee and passed on the doughnuts although they were tempting! Many flavors not found back home.

Dinner was at Taikang Lu, an artsy part of town with tiny shops and restaurants in a labyrinth of alleys and walkways. We met up with Joanne, the other Tour-ing.com co-founder, and 3 others from a tour she was leading. After walking around a bit, we settled on small, cozy, Thai restaurant.

Taikang Lu alleyways filled with shops, cafes, and restaurants.