Rain, wind and fog

Thursday was kind of kicked in the ass by the remnants of typhoon pearl which decided to drop what was left of its rain on the city all day. It was hard to spend any time outside because it was so rainy and windy. Especially because I had been positive that Shanghai and Hong Kong were only going to require shorts and tee shorts beyond nice clothes for dinner. We started off the day with a meeting for me through conf call and working out for my dad. Remember how I mentioned his fear of heights? Well the whole hotel is built on flaunting how tall it is, the tallest bar, post office, etc… apparently all the work out machines are pressed against the floor to ceiling glass so you can take advantage of the view while working out which was anything but great for him. I guess he tried pulling the machine away from the glass but he ran into a language barrier when he tried to explain what he was doing.

Breakfast was nice, how could it not be with a view OVER the clouds. We headed into the city to visit the museum because that seemed like a good rainy day choice which it was. It was a beautiful museum with tons of Chinese historical exhibits (ceramics, jade, coins, …) and a nice exhibit sponsored by the MOMA in New York which was Cezanne to ????, mostly early 20th century works which was pretty cool. Overall though the pottery was probably the most interesting as it was the most comprehensive and also had some of the coolest exhibits.

After the museum we bought umbrellas and tried to make a go of it by walking to Kathleen’s above the art museum for lunch. I was able to almost find it without any assistance from Jason but finally had to give in as I got confused by the fact that two buildings looked a lot like what I remembered it looking like. By the time we walked for 5 minutes we were soaked and not too happy and this was during a light spell in the rain.

We got to Kathleen’s right as the stopped serving lunch which was sweet because I had entered my “I’m so hungry I am even more of an asshole than normal” phase to my father’s credit he just let me be bitchy and did not say anything till I had eaten (Maybe because I got 50% of that trait from him?). The tea service we had was good but did not quite fill me up. We headed back to the hotel just to relax there and grab some free food the view by this point was mostly fog which I have tried to capture.

After spending some time watching megastructures and eating free food we decided to head back into town to meet Holly and Jason for dinner in XinTianDi. This is a new hip part of Shanghai and I just fell more in love with it after dinner at a Hong Kong chain restaurant that was really good. As expected dinner with Holly and Jason was a great time. Lots of good food and good conversation.

After diner we headed back to have a drink at the highest bar in the world which is Cloud Nine on top of the Jin Mao tower (Floor 87). To be honest the view from the lounge on 83 was better because it was not obstructed by the building. 87 was in the pyramid at the top so you could not see straight down. After all this sitting around eating and drinking we decided to call it a night.

And here is an out of place picture of the atrium of the hotel.