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Made it to Shanghai

It’s midnight on Friday here and I’m thankfully feeling sleepy enough to make the jetlag effects minimal. Pudong Airport has the worst baggage handlers of any airport I’ve been to, they are the slowest at unloading planes. I flew thru imigration and was stuck for half an hour waiting for my bag. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was a near death experience more than once. It’s drizzling (or at least it was) and people were acting a bit manic on the roads yet my driver decided that motoring at 110 km/h was still a good idea, swerving between people on the road and delivering a performance on his horn. Luckly, I made it in one piece. The cost of a 40 minute cab ride? 149 RMB, or about $18! Compare that to San Francisco, where the 15 minute ride to the airport costs me $35.

Coming in to Shanghai from the Pudong side is quite a site: it’s exactly what I’d expect Gotham to look like. As the taxi crossed the Lupu Bridge and started on the elevated highway, all you see around you are skyscrapers with lit windows staring back as eyes for miles in every direction. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, completly anonymous as the city passes by on a highway that’s fifty feet off the ground.