De la Coast Party

De la Coast, The Bund, Shanghai

Having a reason to throw a party, getting one year older, Hamid and I arranged an exclusive night at the top floor of Shanghai club De la Coast. Having the whole second floor, with terrace and VIP-tower for ourselves, the night was secured.

There is not much to say except: Look at the pictures! They can best describe the night.

Thank You everybody who joined us this great night at De la Coast! Thank you Daniel for the camera and thank you Alex for helping out with taking the photos.

See the photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.se/edin.erkocevic/PartyDeLaCoastShanghai

Statistics

I use this blog as some kind of travel diary mostly, so I don't do any promotion for it or try to get new visitors. Occasionally I send out an email to all of you my friends to remind you that I have updated the blog (did this more in the beginning, as it is annoying to get an email for every update).

However, I activated Google Analytics on the blog to keep track of the visitors, and where they come from. It is a lot of fun watching in what corners of the world you are connected. I especially love the map view of your visitors.

So here is a statistics report from Google Analytics for Ed in Shanghai 2007 Blog, since Google Analytics was activated on it. A lot of visits from Shanghai, yes. Even if there are some friends from Shanghai who come by every now and than, it was mostly me in the setting-up phase while changing layouts and learning how this works.

First goes the Country Report (42 countries) and than the City Report (170). There are visits from 136 cities that were unidentified

So, who is from Växjö???

Hong Kong, Asia's World City

That is the motto you can see on many of Hong Kong's double-deckers. The last minute long weekend trip to Hong Kong turned out to be a huge success. From Thursday afternoon until late Monday Hamid and I explored China's two SARs (Special Administrative Region: Hong Kong and Macau handed over to China from UK in 1997 respectively 1999 from Portugal.

Hong Kong really is a World City. Besides its size and incredible pulse, you can find most of the world's nationalities walking on the streets of this city. And a lot of them in their clothes as they use it at home, whether it be a traditional Arab white "pajamas" or an African "dress". :o) Nobody is lifting their eyebrows nor turning around, everybody just seems to feel like at home.

Compared to Beijing and Shanghai, Hong Kong is just so much more. More skyscrapers, more noise and above all, much more people. At least that is how it feels. Hong Kong's population is close to 7 million, compared to close to 20 million in Shanghai.

From the busy skyscrapers-covered streets of Hong Kong, we took the ferry to Macau. A European city in the middle of China and Asia. A really strange mix of Portuguese architecture and chinese people and characters, Macau looks a lot more poor than Hong Kong. However, the economic boom in Macau is coming with its many casinos. Macau is set to earn $6.8bn in casino revenues in 2006 compared with Las Vegas' $6.6bn, overtaking Las Vegas as world's biggest casino straw. But there are still more Casinos under construction, and more to come.

To see more of Hong Kong and Macau, you can visit my photo album where I have put up some pictures from the trip.

Hong Kong & Macau picture album

...suddenly Hong Kong

Thursday morning I got out of my bed at about 12.30-13.00 without any plans to leave Shanghai during the weekend. At 14 o'clock, Hamid and I had 2 one-way tickets booked on a 18.35-plane to Shenzhen, 1 hour bus drive from Hong Kong.
Daniel flew here the same day earlier in the morning for some errands, and to take a plane on friday for Sweden.

So here I am in Hong Kong. It is amazing. I like this city a lot.

Pictures coming after I get back to Shanghai.

Beijing photos, better late than never

It has been over a week ago since I came back from Beijing and I haven't made a single post. They were some busy days in Beijing. I attended a CSR-seminar and had some meetings with CSR-people, just doing some networking for my thesis and maybe some future career. (CSR=Corporate Social Responsibility)

Besides that, there was a lot of touristing to be done. First, as every good citizen, I went to pay tribute in front of Chairman Mao's huge portrait looking over the huge Tiananmen Square. The next day a trip to the Ming Tombs and the (huge) Great Wall was on the agenda. The wall is amazing, they say it never ends but it actually does sometimes, and at some places it is almost 90 degrees steep, crazy! During these days I also managed to visit the huge Forbidden City. If you ever go there, dedicate an entire day for the Forbidden City. I also went to the Temple of Heaven and its huge park and walked through some of Beijing's famous Hutongs.


I am just going to post some pictures here from Beijing, skip the writing.

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Even the Great Wall has an end!



Chinese senior citizens at the Great Wall

Having some real chinese tea

Guards in front of Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, which unfortunately was closed for renovation

Chairman Mao and me

The Forbidden City is huge

Temple of Heaven

Beijing calling

Today I arrived to Beijing and after some trouble I finally came to the hotel I booked, just to find out that the whole floor where my room was situated was being renovated due to a water pipe collapse. So I was transfered to a hostel instead. Very nice and friendly indeed.

Just took a trip over to Tiananmen Square, was so eager to see it, and I can just say that it is huuuuuuuge, but I really mean huge. Didn't expect that. So here are some pictures of Beijing by night. I have already booked a trip to the Great Wall, pick up tomorrow at 8.00 am, so off to bed now.

People's Congress

Entrance to the Forbidden City with Chairman Mao's portrait.

A pole

Easter dinner

Just to let you know that we had an Easter Party worth the name. Under Mohsen's authoritae, Andrea and Åsa made a real swedish buffet with everything from meatballs to swedish pickled herring and a pancake-cake with strawberries, mmm...

Easter buffet

After all this food, drinks, cakes and coffees you know what happens when you have a bunch of persians in the room with a pair of speakers! Dance!


All the guys on a pile