Great and productive day here in this wonderful city.. I can’t exactly figure out why.. but tis is one of my favorite cities in the world.. ( my current fav list is.. 1. Jonesville VT, 2 Burlington Vermont, 3 Stockholm, 4. Shanghai.. 5. Boston, 6 Austin , 7. San Fransisco, 8. Haifa 9. Moscow ) I think it’s the brand spanking newness mixed with the old that’s still here.. or the weird food. whatever it is, I love it.

 

This whole section of Pudong was farm land as early as the mid 90’s.. now it’s one of the bigger cities I’ve visited.. I was trying to remember this AM how many times I’ve been here .. I think this is my 5th time… Here’s my hotel.. complete with man-on-pig in front.

 

I went for a nice city run today down to Century Park.. it’s been cool , overcast and misting all the time I’ve been here..   passed lots cool public art..

This place reminds me a little of my hometown Houston in that there are lots of little clusters of high rises outside of the city center.. This one is just down the road from the hotel. sitting in the middle of a bunch of lower buildings.. The architecture is amazing and varied.. and sometimes clashing.

beware of blue ghosts ? I think this is a water saving campaign.. (in front of a waterfall  and pond..I noted )

anywhere you go . there’s a Mc’d’s

then back to the hotel for breakfast… mmmmmm dragonfruit., spicy tofu and fungus… you don’t get that in the states very often for breakfast !

I tried everything on the buffet.. uh.. well.. not everything !

I had a great set of meetings with some client friends.. then late afternoon grabbed a cab down to IBM HQ in the Jin Mao tower. the 5th tallest building  in the world.. THere I met with my freinds Jia and  Gary.. the 678th  and  503rd tallest execs in IBM …

I couldn’t resist getting a picture of Jia with a poster with her picture on it I found onone of the walls.

Around 6:30 Jia and started walking to meet my freinds Mark, Rich and Bill for dinner.. it was about a mile.. which gave me time to see a little more of this part of Pudong..   Here’s an interesting building.. some here don’t like it because it looks too much like a sword.. I think it’s pretty cool looking !

here’s a pretty typical nightscape.. no matter which direction you face.. .. and keep in mind.. we’re about 5 miles from actual downtown here. .. Note the Oriental Pearl tower .. a famous landmark.. near the right..

As we approached the building where the restaurant was.. my brain went into LED overload.. every building had some sort of rainbow LED thing going on.. it was insane. The most amazing thing I saw was a huge harp constructed of LED ribbon.. it changed and shifted to the music..

I was proud not to be the gaudiest thing on the street by far !!!

The restaurant Bill had chosen was really great.. it specialized in seafood..  The name was a bit strange .. but welcoming..

 

We started with fungus.

then came .. weeds with potato chip wings  (no joke they called this weed)

and tofu wrapped in tofu skins stuffed with tofu.. (really nice !)

and whole fish snacks

and really delicious crawdads. .. the signature dish of Sincere Restaurant

And whole fish..

 

here’s host Bill and Jia.

 

THen we all grabbed a cab back to the hotel…. I then had a work call and a on of email.. now I’m struggling against jetlag to stay awake..

ok.. I give up the struggle.. I’m going to sleep !   More from here tomorrow.

nite all, nite sam

-me