As Seen by TV

In my twenty-something years, I’ve hit up twenty-something different countries, and without a doubt Shanghai is the night city of night cities [so far].  I don’t mean that in the sense of things being open (NYC gets that one, minus that stupid curfew), or in regards to nightlife (although no complaints here!), but that the lights are blindly turned on and are in essence: blinding, and furthermore, the crowds disappear (which is a huge plus!).

Let me put it this way: Shanghai by day = *meh*.  Shanghai by night: *BLAHM*!

This set of images is from 3 seperate shoots, the first 3 images are around my office building at the end of Huai Hai Road East.  The following 3 images are of my quick trip to Pudong to pick up a package sent from the homefront (thanks Mom, there is nothing in the world like Belgian D&L mayonnaise!), while the final 6 were actually taken right after the previous post, at Peoples Square.

Compare image #2 above with the one below… same location 6 months earlier:

And from 4 months earlier [see my full post on the graffiti wall]:

March 2010… after over a 1 year of being closed, Shanghai’s most famous landmark reopened to the public; so is the tale of The Bund.

While “The Bund” usually refers to the buildings located along Zhongshan Road (and facing Pudong), my photography on the other hand, does not. 

The Bund is an amazing strip of structures from the [earlier] glory days when Shanghai was a huge financial and shipping hub (sound familiar!?!).  Consisting of a custom house, trading houses, and banks, which subsequently moved elsewhere after the Communist victory during the Chinese Civil War in the 1950′s.  The original institutions however, were given the opportunity during the 1980-90′s (with the thawing of the governments’  economic policy) to have the orignal buildings returned to their orignal uses.  It is truly an amazing strip of architecture, ranging from Gothic and Baroque, to Neo-Classical and Art Deco.

My walk originated from People’s Square through the hair-care area of Shanghai (every shop sells everything related to hair salons, from scissors to those rotating lights), along the Bund, and back down Suzhou Creek.

Also note, the two cars pictures are the BMW M3, and the Rolls Royce Phantom Coupé.  The Phantom is availible in 44,000 colors, which begs the question: is the owner color blind?  It costs about US$400,000, which is doubled in China due to the 100% luxury tax… ooh yeah, believe it. 

Which also reminds me… I’ve heard rumours there’s a Veyron floating around Shanghai.

For Christmas Day, a friend and I headed down to the Shanghai South Bund Fabric Market (and had some street dumplings right out side)… and I kind of wish I had known about this before.  Just think, having custom-tailored suits, coats, and shirts at a fraction of the price as the pre-made mass-produced and over-priced articles you find in shops (they even have official Boss, Armani, etc catalogs for “help” with your design).  You just got to know how to bargain, which I can’t say I’m too good at, but I think we got a decent deal on our “kungfu-style” shirts (I refer to it as my “Chinese pimp shirt“), for 160RMB each.  After walking around the market (it’s 3 full floors inside a building on 399 Lujiabang Road) and doing some research, typically suits go for 400-600RMB and dress shirts around 100RMB… all of course depending on size, material, and quantity you are buying.

After the Fabric Market, we followed a tip of a nice (and free) view of the infamous Pudong skyline, located on the roof bar/restaurant of the Captain’s Hostel located just off the Bund (which has been closed entirely for renovations since I arrived here). [sorry, those pics will have to wait another day or two]

For Tanley’s day-off we visited Jing’an Temple by day and then took the Line 2 subway (sorry for the bad pic, but someone was really asking what they looked like) over to Pudong and hit up Century Park by night…

I met up with a buddy yesterday and we aimlessly hit up SH, meeting at People’s Square and walking east down Nanjing towards the river, grabbing some dumplings then catching a ferry over to Pudong and hitting up the Jin Mao Tower.  We had wanted to go up the SWFC, but weren’t about to drop 150RMB for the experience.  We figured we didn’t have to spend 70RMB for the JMT either, as we could just walk into the Grand Hyatt (the hotel that occupies the top 35 stories) as “hotel guests”.  We were right.

Standing from inside the Jin Mao, I had forgotten how unsettling it was to stand there and look down all those hollow stories, the spiraling balconies don’t help either.
One picture also shows the footprint for the 632m (2073ft) Shanghai Tower set for 2014 completion and designed by Gensler (a nice video can be found on their website).
One thing that I think is kind of funny, is how back-in-the-day all the tallest buildings were in Europe, then they all moved to North America, and now Asia.  China/Hong Kong/Taiwan as of right this moment account for 6 of the top 10, Malaysia has 2, the US has 1, and I hear there’s a beast of a building in Dubai.  Europe’s tallest on the other hand, comes in at #89… and it isn’t even in “Europe-Europe”, it’s in Moscow.
To put it in perspective, the Shanghai Tower will be 3.5x taller than the London Gherkin or almost 2x that of  New York City’s Chrysler Building.  I’m pretty excited to witness the birth of a crazy structure (I gave up on the Freedom Tower).

It’s a shame that it’s been raining all day, as I’ve wanted to go explore the festivities planned for today.  The firework spectacle takes place in just over an hour, so I’m sure I’ll have a glimpse of that.
As for yesterday, I certainly heard a ton of explosions, and assumed they were fireworks… but I couldn’t see/find the damn things.   I ended up going to Pudong, taking metro line 2 to Dongchang Road and walking back to the Lujiazui station (I live nearby the Line 1 South Shanxi station, you can check out a subway map here).  The clouds were absolutely sensational… the colored lights from buildings literally saturated the sky, and once again impeccable timing, as it started raining just when I was wrapping up.

The first two images are panoramas, the vertical consisting of 8 images, and the [messed up] 360-degree horizontal of 13 (the building with the antenna just off-center is the stock exchange).
Also check out the differences in clouds between a 1.6sec and 30sec exposure.  You can even notice a blue radiance on the top right, from the blue lights that decorate the front/back of the Shanghai World Financial Center… not to mention the amazing glow from the apartment buildings to the left.

I have more images (I took about 140, which is more than double the standard Tim Shoot), but these are the only ones I cleaned up, more will be added later.  Have a good night/day wherever you may be and Happy 60th Birthday PRC!!
[also happy birthday to my Italian brother Salvo, have a good one yo!]

Dope video from the crazy parade in Beijing by Dan Chung:

Shanghai is split by the Yangtze river with Puxi on one side and Pudong on the other.  Pudong is the side which is home to the crazy architecture and spectacular skyline you’ve probably seen before.  So before anywhere, this was my first destination to go shooting… there is much more space in Pudong, as it was only marchland just 20 years ago.  And you should see what they’re planning…