My Father’s Birthday in Shanghai
Posted by Trevor in Journal, Shanghai, China
This past Saturday, July 21st was my father’s birthday.
We arrived at the hotel in Shanghai at about 2pm on Saturday. This time around we stayed at the HengSheng Peninsula International Hotel, it is much nicer than the other hotel we stayed at and had a great location (about 100m from the Bund and 200m from Nanjing Road). We were able to get the rooms for $63 a night (their 7-day rate) through the discount website www.wotif.com. I would recommend this hotel if you ever stay in Shanghai.
After getting to our rooms my dad wanted to sleep for a little bit, so Allen and I decided to check out Qi Pu road (which was only about a 5 minute walk from the hotel). Shanghai has the best quality and newest imitation and knock-off items in the world, and Qi Pu road is the biggest marketplace for imitation and knock-off items. Louis Vutton
bags, Rolex’s, Prada Sunglasses, Versace Jeans, etc. You have to negotiate all of the prices with the store employees because none of the items have price tags (this is the way all stores are except for restaurants and 7-Eleven type stores).
My dad is a big role model for me and is the hardest working person I know. He works as the head supervisor for maintenance of several oil tankers at the Cosco Shipyard in Nantong. He works 10 hour days, 7 days a week, and has been in China without seeing me or my family for 8 months. My father has been to countries in every continent and works with his own international team of engineers from 7 different countries that he has become affiliated with throughout his career (almost like Ocean’s 11). When I was growing up, I did not get to see him much because he would be away at sea for 3 months at a time and a couple times as long as 6 months. Although I wish he would have been around more when I was younger, I feel really lucky that I have someone like him who works so hard just to support my family and give me and my sister opportunities that he did not have growing up. I often think about how much harder my life would have been if he did not work so hard, and it really motivates me and makes me want to be more like him.
My father really enjoys jazz music and blues, so for his birthday I planned the night so that we would go to four of Shanghai’s famous jazz and blues bars. The first bar we went to is called CJW and is located on the 50th (top) floor of the Bund Center, the tallest building along the bund. It was a really fancy high-class place and the most expensive of the bars we went to that night, drinks started at 88 RMB (the conversion is 7.5 RMB for each US Dollar). The view of Shanghai from the restaurant is was really beautiful, but in order to get a table along the glass you have to call ahead and make a reservation. The band mostly played jazz.
The second place we went to was called the House of Blues and Jazz. This bar, as well as the other three we went to, was really popular and there were a lot of people there. One of the things we noticed going to all of the bars was that there were more foreigners there than Chinese, it made me think about how the social structure of Shanghai is composed of wealthy foreigners and poor locals. This was probably my dad’s favorite bar, the band played blues and was really good. The drinks were less expensive than CJW at around 58-68 RMB. I had a Long Island Iced Tea and my dad had some jose cuervo and a beer.
Our third stop of the night was JZ club. All of the bars we went to during the night had unique qualities, JZ club had a small orchestra-type band with a conductor and played strictly jazz. The band was really good here too, and they about 30 minutes after we got there they had a singer join the band who sang some Frank Sinatra. There was a cover charge of 30 RMB per person and the drinks were about the same as the House of Blues and Jazz. Allen decided to try a tall Long Island Iced Tea (which he would later regret, in a good way).
The last bar of the night was Cotton Club. Aside from CJW, the bars we went to were located on Fuxing Road, which is notorious in Shanghai for all of its bars. We took cabs from bar to bar, except for going from JZ Club to Cotton Club which were only two blocks from each other. Cotton Club was excellent just like the other places we went to, the drinks were about 48-58 RMB, and the three of us all had dry martinis.
It was a really fun night and I was glad my father enjoyed his birthday.
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