I am sitting, typing away here on the 91^st floor of the Financial World Trade Center. Perhaps to no great surprise I’m in a bar, incidentally the highest bar in the world.

Naturally I feel rather good about myself, mainly as I trekked across town to catch the Happy Hour and arrived here four minutes before its close.

It’s been an eventful fortnight. Little brother Tom arrived and has been keen for a night out at any occasion possible. In fact I’m waiting for him now to arrive, his enthusiasm towards Shanghai has been a welcome tonic from my Scrooge Like Self.

Park Life

It rains now. Restricting one from what is a spectacular view from this bar. But overall the sun has been out removing the gloominess of morning commutes.

The warm weather coincided with some national holidays. This allowed some people to get together and head to the park.

Shanghai is not famed for its parks and general free space unlike the capital, Beijing. This being said the previous week Sean and I had found Gongqing Park and it honestly blew me away.

As well as showcasing180 acres of beautiful garden scenery, the park was kind of like a 90’s theme park. You were able to go on a ride in the park, any ride for about £1. Activities ranged from horseriding, to ferris wheels, to log flumes, to clay pigeon shooting, to big obstacle courses across swamps. My favourite activity was go karting where you paid for each lap. But the award for most unnecessary splendour was the rollercoaster. The amazing thing was that we didn’t queue up and were the only ones riding this colossal thing. The ride had a long spiral and 2 loop the loops, not to bad.

The national holiday the following week got 10 of us together including the newly arrived Tom at Gucun Park. Again, I left impressed. We had a decent BBQ, all the meat and other BBQ accessories were provided at an in-park shop. It was convenient and affordable. A hallmark of Shanghai.

Days out with Tom

This should really be titled Nights Out Tom but I don’t want to turn this into a TrueLad post.

Had some epic days out though. Walking from Longhua Temple across the river to the Expo 2010 site where we found a great BMW showroom and a great public toilet.

We ventured around the Shanghai Zoo. It was pretty impressive how many animals were there. I’d heard some pretty bad reviews of it, possibly down to the Chinese kids or adults who would bang on the glass to try and get a response from the usually docile animal.

Summer Plans

To my relief, my bosses, Kevin and Wella, gave me the go ahead for my adventures this summer.

The plan is to finish teaching 14 June which coincides with the End of the School calendr year and head to Kathmandu, Nepal to meet up with my Dad and again with Tom.I’ve got 3 and a bit weeks off for that. I’m hoping to visit Tibet and possibly X’ian after the trek with the family in the Himalayas.

I will be back in Shanghai for July. But in August I will be setting off again on an already booked flight to Australia to see some Summit Camp friends and by that point escape the heat of the Shanghai summer.

So it is no surprise then that I’m feeling pretty good.