Sam Tam Ramblings: Shanghaied in Jan 2010

It's winter.... and not really a good time to be travelling in the Northern hemisphere! Just had about 2 weeks in London and Paris with relatively mild weather (except for 2 days of snow). So when I was monitoring the weather in Shanghai before my travels, i was getting a little bit concerned as the average temperatures was a few degrees below what we had experienced in Europe. On the morning that I landed n Pudong, it was -5 deg C!! Bloody negative 5 degrees C!! Oh oh... Looks like I am in for a cold stay.

(I was staying at the Holiday Inn Express, JinQiao - pretty economical)

But it sure looks like wherever I travel, I bring the sun with me. When I was in Shanghai a few months ago, the whole week I was here, the weather was warmer than expected. When I left, it turned cold again. Same thing in London and Paris. Heh heh heh. So today, Saturday, I was going around Shanghai with just a short sleeved tee, a sweater over that and a jacket just in case.

I promised EC to check out Longchamps prices to see if it is worthwhile to buy from Shanghai.

(The station at Jufeng Road)

So I took the metro (Shanghai rail transit) from Jufeng Road station (line no.6) to East Nanjing Road station (line no.2). Surfing the net, it shows that there is an outlet for Longchamps at West Nanjing Road.

I forgot to check the address - it was at 1618, West Nanjing Road!!

So in my leisurely walk from East Nanjing Road to 1618, West Nanjing Road, I almost cramped up my legs!

(a new shop opening on Nanjing Zhong Lu)

Which idiot in Shanghai go and restart the numbers when you cross from East Nanjing Road to Central Nanjing Road to West Nanjing Road?

(A L'Oreal promotion booth outside one of the bigger shopping complexes)

I did not realize this until I crossed the street from Central Nanjing road to West Nanjing Road and saw that the addresses restarted from 2!! Shit!! That walk was longer than our walk from Crowne Plaza in Republique place to Notre Dame in Paris. And that was a pretty long walk too.

The walk was educational to some extent as I normally associated only Central Nanjing Road (Nanjing Zhong Lu) as the shopping area.

(There is a Madame Tussaud's near the beginning of West Nanjing Road!)

That's sort of like Orchard Road on a smaller length.

(Many trees are fully wrapped in gold foil!!?? Why??)

I did not realize that Nanjing Road stretched so far. I have travelled and visited places on West Nanjing Road many times without realizing where I was previously.

The whole stretch of Nanjing Road from East to West is much longer than Oxford Street in London and

(This Marks & Spencer outlet is bigger than any M&S in Malaysia)

have almost all the branded names setup along the way.

If you want an idea how affluent the Chinese have become in general and Shanghainese in particular, you can more or less tell from the kind of showrooms that you can see.

For example, I saw this Ferrari/ Maserati showroom across from the Porche and Mercedes showroom. This is on the ground floor of the J W Marriot hotel.

You have

LV and

Prada in one of the up market malls.

(and you do get garish decoration - for Xmas??)

And when I reached my destination - Shanghai Jiuguang Dept Store - it was like deja vu!! The layout was very similar to that of Galleries LaFayette in Paris where we bought a bunch of LongChamps. EC even remembers that there was a Tiffany & Co at the entrance.

Trust that girl to know where all the expen$ive places are. Despite a 30% discount, the prices are still higher than in Paris. As the sales lady told me - imported mah..

Just outside, stalls have been setup to sell Chinese New Year delicacies.