Shanghigh

While photographing the Grand Hyatt Shanghai I stayed in a room at the
top. It was the executive level, floor 85, so I was allowed free
cocktails in the executive lounge during happy hour. From the view
out of my window I could look down on skyscrapers. There was a
lightning rod just outside my window which did not make me feel too
safe. Shanghi is like having thirty downtowns compressed into one
that snakes along both sides of a river.

I had a drink in the hotel bar on the 86th floor which used to be the
highest in the world and was pestered by yet another hooker. The
highest bar in the world is next door in the Park Hyatt on the 92nd
floor. I tried a drink their too. My ears popped as I made it to the
top and enjoyed a twenty-dollar glass of Scotch in a trendy bar that
had white spray painted shoes, phones, and other items hanging by
strings from the ceiling and was lit with red light. I’m not sure
what that was all about.

I did not eat anything too weird in this city although I read about a
restaurant that serves donkey meat. Maybe next time, I’m sticking to
dumplings. I went to a few different German restaurants and it is odd
to see the Chinese girls dressed up like German barmaids. The food
and beer was quite authentic although I did have better in Germany.

On my last day I went and had yet another marathon massage session. I
started out for just one hour but massages are like crack for me so I
had a one and a half hour Japanese Shiatsu massage, where she uses
mostly her thumbs, followed by a half hour foot massage. With a tip
all of that was $60! One of these days I’m going to spend a whole day
in a spa. That would be awesome. I’m sure I could do that in Vietnam
for cheap.

Yesterday I was trying to decide what to do with my day off. I
decided to burn the travel guide book and headed to a market next to
the Science and Technology Museum. I was in search of a kite. I
bought a long green dragon kite with 500 meters of string and
proceeded to fly it in the park next door. I crashed it three times.
Once it landed over the fence of a somewhat ominous looking Communist
government building and I was expecting angry guards with rifles to
ship me off on a train to Siberia but fortunately that never happened.
Some local guy stopped and asked me if I was from Germany, that’s a
new one. He said he had never seen a foreigner fly a kite before, “Oh,
really?” I took my eyes off the wheel for a moment and the kite
crashed into a tree.