Shanghai Weekend #2

If you're ever living in China and go to the Shanghai-Pudong airport to fetch someone, you should know that there are completely separate arrivals stations for domestic and international arrivals and only one little sign to indicate this.
I happened to arrive at the airport two hours before the before did, although my life being what it is, he ended up waiting for me for about 45 minutes.
Time is never on my side.
When you factor in his plane's 30 minute premature arrival as well as my stupidity in missing the aforementioned sign, I was not a very welcoming host.
We were finally off and on our way to the Shanghai Hotel Indigo. Hotel Indigo is my favorite brand, not just under IHG, but in the world of hotels. They are distinctly boutique and always well-designed. The service is great without having uptight staff.
It's the kind of brand a girl that bores of working in chain hotels, but doesn't want to lose her travel discount, dreams of.
Anyway.
Our room was designed as if it were a studio apartment: brick walls, day bed serving as a couch, a quarter canopy over the bed, a super fab desk area, and the most awesome view of the Bundt you could possibly get (and did I mention the walk-in shower that has a floor to ceiling window to show it off?).
I could probably use the rest of this post to go on and on about the hotel, but I will let you experience it for yourself sometime or just check out there site here.
The next morning he surprised me with American cereal he had brought from home (heck yes!) and we headed off to have breakfast at a place called A Future Perfect.
Now, I would also love to continue the rest of this post ranting and raving about how fabulous our breakfast was there, except we never made it.
Yeah, we got lost and in the haste of our hunger settled on a random cafe with mediocre food.
This made me particularly sad because I like to go to Shanghai for the food. Shanghai is cool and all, but there really isn't anything more important to me, a girl that lives in a relatively small China town with little access to decent food, than the international food scene.
So, we ate our mediocre food and then got lost some more on our way to try to go to a temple that ended up being too busy and too expensive for us to care to go to anymore. In the end, we spent most of the day on the subway and part of it at People's Park, which is essentially the Central Park of Shanghai.

I told you, the New York of Asia.
Along the way, I made sure he tried a few of my favorite things: Yakult, Green Apple flavored Fanta (or "fen dah" as the Chinese say), Bueno Bars, and the CoCo stand's milk tea.
And he kept on in a game of "Can you smell that?"
I know I've complained about how the water just reeks of pollution, as does the air, and the occasional disgusting smell of weird Chinese food or spoiling, well, whatever.
I'm happy to report that by this point those smells no longer existed.
Well, as long as my nose knew they didn't.
Unfortunately this wasn't the case for Nick who was a constant reminder that I could no longer smell these fumes.
"You can't smell that?"
"There's no way you can't smell that one."
"I can't believe you're practically Chinese now that you nose has turned."
Okay, that last one was a little harsh.
I wonder if I was that obnoxious when I first arrived. It's okay, Nick, I forgive you.
That evening, Nick had his first try of the amazing soup-filled dumplings at Din Tai Fung.

Fortunately for you, you don't have to go all the way to Shanghai to enjoy one of my new favorite restaurants on the planet. They also have a location in Los Angeles and Seattle. 

So, in all probability, you only have to fly across the country instead of around the world. 

And it's worth it. 

I assure you. 

We wrapped up our last night in Shanghai by going to the Apple store so Nick could get his cult fix, but also brag to his co-workers back at his home Apple store and, finally, up the Oriental Pearl Tower. 

Standing at 1,535 feet, the Oriental Pearl Tower is a sight to see among over 3,000 sky scrapers in Shanghai. And because this is China, it is much prettier at night. Just as a refresher: the Chinese love their neon lights in the night sky, plus it makes you forget about all the smog you're breathing into your lungs.
I was deathly afraid of the glass floor and consistently ridiculed with each child that ran by in utter happiness at the thought of running across the city of Shanghai at over 1,500 feet, with no regard of what I was sure was pending doom from running along glass at that height.
I was ready for bed or alcohol.
But a bed actually sounded better since I had already probably sweat out all my water weight that day.
In fact, I'm ready for it now just thinking about it.