Shanghai At 250 mph

On a recent trip to China, Nuch and I had a few hours before our flight back to Bangkok, so we made a speedy trip into Shanghai to have dinner and visit my old stomping grounds.

With limited time, there were only a few highlights.

Here is the apartment I lived in back in the 1900's. It's the old, brown building in the background. I think those old ladies were in the same spot when I left.

We also stopped by the famous Long Bar (apparently, the longest bar in China), which is attached to Shanghai's, previously, premier hotel, the Portman.

When I was doing my overseas program with Thunderbird, my classmates and I would spend some time here, wishing that one day we could actually afford it. A beer at the Long Bar was 3 times the price anywhere else, but as a young MBA student, it was well worth it to mingle with the international businessmen we hoped to be someday.

I have to admit, though, seeing it almost 10 years later, it didn't leave near the same impression. I'll never go back.

We only had about 3 hours altogether, so to make the most of it, we took the hi-speed MagLev train into Shanghai. It was the best 7 minutes of our little outing. It took about 3.5 minutes to reach a top speed of 250 mph, and another 3.5 minutes to slow down. Then, we were there.