Whore of the Orient, Paris of the East; city of quick riches, ill-gotten gains and fortunes lost on the tumble of dice; the domain of adventures, swindlers, gamblers, drug runners, idle rich, dandies, tycoons, missionaries, gangsters and back street pimps; the city that plots revolution and dances as the revolution shoots its way into town!
 
Now reawakened and is busy snapping the dust off its cummerbund. This city is a city typifying the huge disparities of modern China - monumental building projects pushing towards the sky, glinting department stores swing open their doors to the stylish elite, while beggers, prostitutes and the impoverished congregate among the champagne corks and burst balloons of the night before. History is returning to haunt this city and at the same time, put it squarely back on the map!
 
Taken from the Lonely Planet!
You don't really think I could write something like that do you!
 
So, with seven days off next week (1st to 7th May) for Labor Day I have a Golden Week to pack the pack and take off somewhere not too far away.

Tickets are already in our pockets and accommodation has been taken care of.
We are staying right in the middle of the neons and the millions of stylish people.
It has been several years since I have stepped foot into a city even remotely as modern as this.
 
I'm going to hate the prices.
The excessive amount of people in one city is really going to piss me off.
After living in rural China for so long, the unthinkably stupid amount of money wasted building one city will really mess with my head.
(Hey we have 900 million people living below the poverty line, argh bugger em, lets build a super city!)
 
I actually never thought that I would visit this city during my entire stay here in China (however long that will be). But lets face it, everything you read about it, every time you see it on the TV or in a magazine it reaches into you curiosity a little deeper each time.
 
Now its time to go and see this city for myself.
It is time to go where socialism with Chinese characteristics meets shop-till-you-drop commercialism.
 
It's time to visit SHANGHAI!