My First impression on arriving in China

So I have arrived in China, landing at Shanghai airport at 11pm on a cold misty Sunday night, I passed through customs easily, in fact easier than going through the customs at Heathrow in the UK, the officer even wishing me a nice time working here. I found a taxi and thrust the address of a downtown hotel at him and he grunted, loaded my suitcase into the back of his VW Passat car and off we went.
Now, during my travels I have had some hairy rides in taxis, especially in Russia and the Ukraine, but this ride topped the lot, the highway was a six lane one, three lanes in each direction and very little traffic at this time of night, but my driver was not content with using one of the designated lanes, oh no, he overtook cars in the outside lane by crossing into the opposite carriageway over two solid lines and then swerving back when cars coming head on flashed their lights.
We passed down dark roads with fully laden lorries and trucks driving with no lights in near fog conditions, and when we hit the downtown area he decided to use the full power of the engine and fairly raced down the roads at about 70 mph, narrowly missing late night pedestrians crossing the road.
Still we made it to the hotel in one piece and he thoughtfully carried my case to the reception desk. I booked in and rode a lift to the 10th floor of this high rise building, my room was clean and well appointed, with comfortable bed, chairs and en suite bathroom.
When I awoke later that morning I got my first view of Shanghai from the bedroom window, a mass of towering buildings, high rise apartments and hundreds of neon flashing lights, it reminded me more of Seattle than a Chinese city that I had imagined.
I had a breakfast of strange very sweet coffee, together with boiled eggs, noodles in a chicken soup and a type of bread that was closer to sponge cake, spread with a thick coating of an indistinguishable jam, I could have had boiled rice, some sort of deep fried small bones and a kind of vegetable stew but at 8am they did not really appeal to me.
I contacted my friend who lived nearby and we meet at 10 o’clock and went for a morning cup of tea, ah China tea “Cha” comes in so many flavours, colours and sizes, we had green tea in small cups, it was quite pleasant, but being used to English black tea seemed very weak and watery to me.
We then meet up with my friends Chinese wife and together walked to the “People Park” which was beautiful, from there we went down to the river and walked along side for a while before returning to the town and catching a metro to the other side of the river where we went to a shopping mall, this was huge, surrounded with the most magnificent tall buildings stretching way up into the sky, with others still being constructed and apparently to be even taller, it appears that Shanghai and Beijing have a contest to see who can build the tallest building, Shanghai is winning at the moment.
After a great lunch of dim sum, beef hot pot and more green tea we walked around the area, taking in the sights, we ended up in a bar in a park overlooking a small lake, Chinese music was played by a small band on a stage nearby and as the sun set it really was a magical and quite romantic place.
We took a taxi to another part of town, this driver was calm and drove well !!! and arrived at a restaurant my English friend said was one of the best around, he was not wrong, the food was just to die for, plus an excellent choice of wines including to my delight Italian Chianti which I adore, having just spent 8 months in Pisa. I would love to tell you all the things we ate, but it was all in Chinese so I had no idea, I just ate what was given to me and loved every bite.
When we finished we walked around the corner to a pub that held Jazz evenings, we settled down with local beers and listen to the music and then I returned to my hotel ready for a 4am call as I had to catch a train at 5 to my final destination in Anhui Provice.
To be continued