Return from Shanghai

I have returned from Shanghai!
To do so, I flew on Spring Airlines (春秋航空), which is essentially China's equivalent of Ryan Air. Therefore, it was the cheapest flight I could find, but not the best experience. Our flight was delayed two hours, most of it while we were sitting on the plane, seats were not particularly comfortable, and nothing free was provided on flight. I flew back on the last day of the National Week Holiday, so things were crowded and tickets were more expensive as everyone headed back to work.

The most bizarre part of the flight was towards the very end, when the soothing announcer voice asked us, in English and Chinese, "Tired? Why not wake up with some gentle exercises?" Then, the flight attendants, standing at intervals throughout the aisle, led the passengers through a series of simple sitting exercises. These included rotating the neck, stretching and making circles with the arm, etc. I did not participate, enjoying my normal in-flight ritual of half-napping, but I was shocked by the number of passengers who did. At least half of them were following along with flight attendant, and it was almost enough to pull me in and follow the crowd. I don't remember if Ryan Air does something similar, but it was definitely unexpected.

Shanghai was a great city, beautiful weather at this point of the year and absolutely no pollution. I spent the entire three days I was there walking around and exploring the city, seeing the architecture in various parts of town. It feels very different from Beijing and Guangzhou, is much more modern and more Western, and therefore has a much larger number of foreigners than either city (or so it seemed to me).

There were many very cool buildings, from the ultra-modern under-construction Shanghai Tower, known as the White Magnolia Building:

to the classic Chinese architecture seen in the Shanghai Confucian temple (文庙):

to the older-feeling European-style mixed living found in Sinan Mansions (思南公馆) near Xintiandi (新天地), conveniently close to the great Boxing Cat Brewery:

But one of my favorite buildings that we stumbled across was just a simple appliance store, with a life-affirming slogan pasted across its front:

  

YOLO, random Shanghai appliance store. YOLO.