Sunshin3

The plane touched down at Shanghai Pu Dong Airport at 6.30am in the morning. With a journey that took about an hour to reach downtown, no prizes for guessing what i was doing in the car that Terz arranged to pick me up.

This year’s winter in Shanghai was especially harsher and longer. It took a while to get used to the extremities of the weather but it was refreshing nonetheless.

And i continued snoozing at Xavier’s place till we decided coffee was essential to keep us warm.

The day saw us driving by the bund, exploring downtown, taking photos of ordinary folks doing ordinary stuff, having good dim sum etc..

It’s always nice to explore cities when you have friends already living in the city. I was supposed to meet up with a client during my trip too and she had the intention of bringing me to Xin Tian Di but ah well, some events happened and i had to give that leg of the weekend trip up.

Probably the most interesting highlight of the trip was witnessing this group of elderly folks trying to match make their kids. It was quite a scene watching these folks exchanging numbers and resumes of their daughters and sons publicly in a couldn’t be more aptly-named “Peoples’ Park”. I’ve been told that they only do it over weekends which also makes me wonder if their kids are aware of what their parents are doing.

Who knows? Singapore could draw inspiration from them.

And when evening fell, we headed out for a hot-pot dinner with more of Terz’s friends. Honestly, the number of Singaporeans living in Shanghai is amazing and you don’t really feel alien in this country. Drinks was held at this place called Barbarossa, which served sheesha pipes as well. I took a drag, and found it sweet and light although i much preferred the Chilean wine that we were drinking.

Barbarossa from People’s Park

Drinks, good meals, great company.

I was glad i came.