Shanghai, the city of 30 million

Shanghai, China (ok, so it has a lot of skyscrapers, I get it).

We had heard mixed reviews on Shanghai before deciding to visit, but we wanted to see the tallest building in China and were going to make it happen.
Shanghai turned out terrifically! We had a wonderful time, 5 days in a city with 25,000,000+ other folks  It wasn’t nearly as bad as we had anticipated. It was busy, but no-where near as congested as Beijing (in our opinion), and we thought the City Center Area, The Bund Area, and many public places were finely designed and wisely planned. Traffic flowed easily and walking, taxis, and the subway were super easy.
I’ll have to admit, Christina booked a solid hotel, which sometimes can really make the difference in your enjoyment of where you are. It’s not always fun to come back after 6 hours walking, hot and sweaty, and plop down on a questionable bed, lukewarm shower or visibly see the grit. This hotel was good, basically a budget business hotel (instead of a guesthouse or hostel). $30 a night ain’t so bad when you wake up completely refreshed and clean.
Shanghai highlights would include: Having dinner on top of The Pearl Orient Tower in a rotating restaurant and pigging out on a full gourmet buffet. Seeing the tallest building in China and where they are building the “next tallest building in the world”. Walking down on The Bund and taking pictures of the Shanghai cityscape. The Bund is a historical area on the riverfront that has been turned into posh designer shops and luxury brand offices, banks, etc. The Historical on one side of the river, the Modern skyscraper side on the other makes for a unique view. Going out on the town with some young girls and guys (19-20yrs) that stayed in our hotel, being treated to food, drinks, laughs and odd conversation obstructed by a massive language barrier (great fun!) They were all so nice and fun and having their first visit to Shanghai themselves. Shanghai was clean, modern, good food, cold beer, world-class shopping, beautiful sky-line and easy, I’d recommend at least 3-4 days here for anyone, there’s so much to see. The spitting is slightly less here as well, which is a positive, but there are no qualms about smoking in any restaurant and flicking ashes right on the floor it appears.
We are headed to Nanjing now, a town about 3 hours by bullet train, just an intermediate stop on the long journey to Xian (17 hours by hard sleeper train) pronounced (Shee-an) where we will see the very famous Terracotta Warriors and a few other famous sites.