Shanghaied

I'm currently sitting here writing from a hotel apartment in Shanghai, China.  I'm still actually not sure I 100% believe that I'm here.

Last night, I experienced a little sliver of the Shanghai nightlife at a club called The Apartment.  My roommate and I had actually planned to go to a different club, but we got a bit lost, and it turned out to be a lot farther away than we expected.  Lucky for us, as we stood in confusion on a street corner, trying to decide which way to go, an expat came over to offer assistance.  He showed us how far away the Geisha club was, and then told us about a great club right nearby where we could go instead.  We opted for the closer option, and it was quite the experience.  It was a jam-packed little space on the third floor of a building.  Very cool.  As we walked home, I was surprised at how quiet the streets of Shanghai are at night.  With 20mill people, you would expect it to be busy all the time, but the streets were basically deserted, and we had a lovely walk back to the apartment.

Anyway... This morning was my first real attempt at trying to explore the city.  I wasn't exactly successful in that I didn't get where I wanted to go, but I wasn't exactly unsuccessful either, because I ended up stumbling on a gorgeous part of the city.
I was trying to get to Longhua Temple, and I guess I did, but it really wasn't what I expected.  The whole area was under construction, and I really didn't see an easy way to get over to the temple... plus, it just didn't look all that impressive surrounded by construction walls.  As the cab pulled up, the driver started talking to me, and while I couldn't understand him, I imagine it was something along the lines of "you idiot, this is where you wanted to go... there's nothing here!"  He pulled over on the side of a road lined with construction walls and pointed to the meter.  Well.. ok.  I figured that even though the temple looked like a bust, I may as well just get out and go for a wander.  After all, I had my apartment location card, so if I got really lost I could just hail a cab and get home.  In the meantime, I plugged what I thought was my apartment into the gps of my phone to see where I lived compared to where I was.  The gps said I was about 4km away, so I figured "ok, that's not too far of a walk, and maybe I'll find some cool things."  I did.
After walking for about 15 minutes, the streets got quieter and the people thinned out.  There were trees everywhere and I was coming up on the river.  Eventually I ended up on a beautifully serene walkway along the Huangpu.  As I walked along, I came to the Longhua Bridge, and while there was clearly a sign in front of the "walkway" forbidding bicycles, I didn't see anything forbidding pedestrians, so I made my way onto the bridge.  The walkway was quite wide and ran alongside of traffic, and I'm really not sure that I was allowed to be there.  I had several men on scooters beep their horned and stare as they passed, even looking behind them as they went by to continue staring.  Of course, that might have been sheer surprise at the lone laowai, sticky with sweat, ambling happily down the bridge in the middle of the day.  I actually got quite a few stares during my jaunt, which isn't surprising considering that I was clearly not in a tourist area.  After crossing the bridge, I passed by two men flying some seriously impressive kites, who stared quietly and sternly as I wandered by.  I then got laughed at by two women who looked like crossing guards as I darted across the road at the "safe to cross" sign, trying not to get hit by oncoming cars.  Yes, that's right.  Those little green lights that indicate it's ok to cross the road?  They lie.  You can still get hit by a car here when your walk light is green.  Eventually I found myself at "my hotel" according to the gps.  And indeed, the hotel was clearly owned by the same people.  However, it was clearly not my hotel.  As a matter of fact, after investigating a little and wandering around for probably another kilometer, I realized that my hotel was actually about 5km away from where I ended up.  By this point, I was drenched in sweat (Shanghai in July is hot), and I just couldn't fathom another 5km in the soupy air, so I stopped in front of the other hotel and hailed a cab home.
All in all, I didn't see any attractions, but I had a beautiful walk along the river and got to see some beautiful scenery that I probably wouldn't have found if I hadn't gotten lost.  Happy accident?  In think so.
More to come from China soon!