Shanghaied

I've just returned from the future. It's the third time I've been there and each time I've visited, I've fallen deeper in love with it. It's a fantastic place - almost a prototype MegaCity One but without the constant block wars and the whole borderline psychopathic Judges thing. You may know it as Shanghai.

Landing in Shanghai on a rainy Thursday afternoon, I was supposed to be picked up by a car but, mindful of my Beijing experience, I was prepared. I had maps and I had apps. It was a straightforward trip on the maglev to Longyang Road and then a couple of stops along line 2 of the Metro to Century Avenue - from there I had enough Mandarin to get me to the hotel. I didn't want the driver to show up: I was ready. I was an independent traveller, cosmopolitan and confident, making my self-assured way through the world.

The driver showed up.

As it turned out, I was glad he did as my driver for this trip, Tony, was the man for whom the word enthusiastic was coined. Tony enthusiastically (and at full volume from a very impressive car stereo) shared with me his love for Lionel Richie, Celine Dion and Jennifer Rush, educating me in music. In fact, he shared with me his love for all things MOR, including, it must be said, his driving style.

Still, he'd been driving in Shanghai for twenty years (which meant that, by the look of him, he started driving around ten years old) and he got me to the hotel quickly and easily. And, with his shaved head, sunglasses (yes, even in the rain) and flat cap, he got me there in style. He was great and I have confess to a little man-crush there!

The hotel was very nice - clean and the food was good; nothing special but far from the worst place I've ever stayed. I don't have many demands when I'm training - actually, I don't have any demands at all, because no one pays any attention - but if I'm given the choice, I do request a hotel close to the training venue. In HK they've elevated the concept of "close" to a fine art. For me, "close" is anything in five to ten minutes' walking distance. Talk to an estate agent on HK and you'll soon learn that "close" means "built on top of." In Beijing, close means "about an hour away, most of which you'll spend stationary in a traffic jam." In Shanghai it appears to mean anywhere that can be reached in twenty minutes in a cab driven by Mad Max at suicidally high speeds through insanely crowded roads.

I'm conscious that there's only a limited number of times I can tell you that places in China are really big before you switch off completely. However, Shanghai is really big. It's pretty flat and it reminds me a lot of Los Angeles - on the drive back to the airport you pass mile after mile after mile after mile of residential housing and, when the road rises you realise that Shanghai extends to the horizon (and far beyond) in every direction. And then twenty minutes' (very fast) driving later it still extends to the horizon in every direction. A seemingly endless sea of houses and factories and low-rises and shopping malls.

But I love Shanghai in the way that I didn't really love Beijing. Shanghai seems more open, more welcoming, more cosmopolitan in some way. I was only partly joking when I started this entry. I know that China's a one-party dictatorship but, hey, nowhere's perfect and let's be honest, democracy isn't working out all that well in the USA or the UK, is it? At the risk of sounding like a useful idiot, as Steffens said: I've seen the future and it works.