Jin Mao

My friend Chris from the UK is in town - we took Chinese classes together last year so shared our teacher's amusing quest to grasp all things British. Also, my new debit card was here, so we decided to paint the town red (well...).

We took the tourist tunnel under the river to Pudong, which is a bizarre tram-like vechile that moves through a strange tunnel of lights that might be trying to simulate LSD. Unfortunatly I didn't disable the flash on my camera and none of the photos came out very well.

Chris had told me about this nice buffet meal served in a certain Grand Hyatt hotel, but we didn't quite know where it was, so we asked directions, and were pointed to...

Yup, that's right, I ate up there. (recycled photo I know - it didn't come out so well at night)

It was rather divine, we partook gladly and plentifully.


Clockwise from top: smoked salmon, POTATOES* with onion and bacon, prawns in garlic, pork cutlet, ROAST BEEF**, antipasto, fish, BEEF CARPACCIO (WITH SHAVED PARMESIAN*!!!), some shellfish. * - much needed

They had also committed the cardinal sin for any buffet meal, and included sorbet in the dessert. Chris displayed a typical northern lack of restraint on the dessert


While I, with my superior southern breeding, was much more civilised:

(I couldn't find the big plates)

We had a window seat and were able to enjoy the Shanghai skyline much more nicely from the 56th floor (about 2/3 of the way up). It's only when you're there that you realise how much taller than everything else Jin Mao really is. We eventually managed to disable my camera's flash and get some skyline pictures of mediocre quality

Citigroup always was a second rate excuse for a bank

Price tag for the evening: 450RMB each - less than I paid for my Lacrosse annual dinner back home.

After dinner, we wondered Pudong breifly and happened upon a breif note from our sponsors - Chris and I were both given £400 by a certain fund back in the UK, and we were sure they'd approve of our recent investment in the Shanghai property/eatery market


We like these people. The Chinese couple we ambushed to take the photo perhaps didn't quite understand...