Reunion in Shanghai!

I finished the vacation part of my trip by heading to Shanghai for a few days to see Kendrick and Gina, friends of mine from Copenhagen. The last time I had seen them was when we had overlapping trips to Dubai to see Virginie and Ceasar which included a trip to Oman together. Kendrick and Gina had been transferred to Shanghai for work and while there had an adorable baby boy named Magnus who I may or may not have been blog stalking for the past 6 months.
Sadly, Magnus and Gina were very sick so I had to keep my distance but it was great to finally meet Magnus and to catch up with Kendrick and Gina. I toured around Shanghai, hitting all the main sites…The Bund is a must, it is a long promonade along the east bank of the Huanpu River. It was an overcast day, but there were still good views looking across to the west bank at the Oriental Pearl Tower which is the world's third tallest TV and radio tower. I was in Shanghai on the last day of Chinese New Year celebrations and the YuYuan Gardens (from the Ming Dynasty) were filled with red lanterns, rabbits, and people!
I'm still not exactly sure what all these figures in the water were, but all the locals were entralled making it rather difficult to push my way through the crowd. Within the grounds is a tranquil inner garden which was a nice break from the crowds.

And then back out to the crazy cartoon rabbit decorations! Kendrick took me out for Shaghaiese food and it was delicious. He taught me the proper way to eat the sticky crab dumplings by first biting a little hole to suck out the broth - yum!Next up was taking in the city lights from the top floor of a Marriott....complete with gin and tonics, with cucumber slices. I think it was actually Kendrick who got me into drinking gin and tonics when we were back in CPH, so this was the natural choice for an after dinner drink...or two...before we headed for 90min massages. Amazing way to end the night, I almost fell asleep on the table!
The following day, Gina and I headed to Xin Tiandi whihc means "New Heaven and Earth." It is composed of an area of reconstituted traditional shikumen ("stone gate") houses on narrow alleys, some adjoining houses which now serve as book stores, cafes and restaurants, and shopping. We had a great time browsing through the stores and enjoyed a fabulous lunch.

....and then it was off to Hong Kong!