This is Shanghai!

I arrived in Shanghai the day after the earthquake and just as the scale of the disaster was unfolding. The shock waves made people evacuate most buildings in the city including the airport. People said it was very confusing and was like being in a jelly and feeling dizzy. Some of the pictures I have seen of the area around the epicentre make you wonder about the scale of these disasters. It was pretty much business as usual though on Tuesday.

The new Pudong airport is another fine building but not on the grand scale and design of Singapore's T3 (more on this another time). We have 22 outlets in this airport but whoever decided to hide the landside catering in the far corners of the arrivals hall made a big mistake. Imagine a building that is about 400 metres wide and in the centre is where the arriving passengers exit. This is the point at which everybody congregates but why did the designer put the Burgerking and Sports bar on the right side 200 metres from this exit and the Spices restaurant on the left side 200 metres in the other direction? It isn't much better in departures with the Cafe Ritazza on the far right hand side hidden behind airport information boards.

We travelled into Shanghai on the Maglev train which reached an astonishing 431 kilometres an hour.




The hotel was very good and gave a great sunset view of Shanghai's new World Financial Centre building standing at 492 metres. This designer building dominates the already impressive skyline alongside the Oriental Pearl Tower and Jin Mao Tower. Its future is not nearly so certain today as it was when construction started in 1997. There has been a five year pause in building due to a lack of tennants and a less bouyant economy. Ah well; it looks nice.

The food in Shanghai is superb. Very different from Singapore but just as tasty and you have to be in the restaurant by 7.30pm because they start to close at 8. We went to the Blue Frog the first night and to what translates as 'Big Thumb' square on the second.

Interestingly the Internet access in China is rigourously monitored and although the connectivity was good the sites were restricted, for example I couldn't access the blog and the BBC came across as 'Access Denied' couple of times. But I could access our servers in Washington DC as if they were in the next room.

A visit that was all too brief but hopefully not the last.