Shanghai F1 GP 13.-15.4.2012

We spent pretty much the whole last weekend on the Shanghai Circuit since the F1 circus was in town! Me and my roommate Ville booked our tickets quite a long time ago because we certainly didn’t want to miss this happening :) the cheapest tickets for the whole weekend were about 340rmb (ca. 40€) on the grass stand but we bought tickets for a bit better stand and those tickets cost 800rmb (ca. 90€) each. Once arrived at the stand, we realized that it certainly was worth paying the money because our seats were right at the end of the finish line with two big curves in front of us. So we actually could see quite a lot from the race and not just cars passing by with 370km/h like on the grandstand for example!

On Friday we didn’t go to watch the training session as we had mandatory lectures the whole day at school but on Saturday we went to the circuit early in the morning. The subway was surprisingly not that full on the way there yet. The circuit itself is pretty far from the city center since it’s the subway ride took almost 90 minutes to get there.. On Saturday’s schedule there was the last training session in the morning and in the afternoon the actual qualification for Sunday’s race. Around the circuit there was all kinds of activities for the visitors. VIP guests had a small circuit where they could test some AMG Mercedes cars, Porsche had a nice and big pavilion and many of the F1 teams had their own stands where they sold fan staff.

On Sunday we went to the circuit way before the actual race to watch the Porsche team cup race and spend some time around the circuit before the race. This was my first F1 race I’ve seen live so far and I really enjoyed it. Of course, you can follow the race much better on TV but it was cool to see and hear the cars. One big surprise for me were all the Chinese people (mostly female) supporting Kimi Räikkönen! The Finnish flag was by far the most popular one in the stands which felt pretty nice :) besides the massive amount of Chinese supporting Finland, there were quite a lot Finnish people too and we saw many of our friend from the Shanghai Finnish Community too.. One development proposal would be to install a bit bigger screens in front of the stands so that you could at least see the standings once a while in between because those what they had there now were really too small.. But otherwise I’m very pleased how everything was organized. Even the subway worked decently even though there were 40 to 50 thousand people leaving the area at the same time :) the Chinese had it, though, well organized and the queue proceeded nicely without any problems. 

Ancient water towns around Shanghai

I’ll continue writing about some hopefully useful topics for people coming to Shanghai either as tourists or maybe to live here and exploring various places around the city. So today’s post deals with few ancient water towns in Shanghai. I myself have been to two of them, to Qibao (七宝) and Nanxiang Guyi Garden (南翔古意园). Qibao is 360-meter long south-north boulevard running across the Qibao ancient town. It is easily accessible with the subway line 9 as there is a station called Qibao too. The street offers visitors all kind of different foods and drinks, whereas the area around the North Square has many shops offering local handicrafts and arts.

Just like Qibao, Nanxiang is also located about a 50-minute metro ride from the city center and it is on line 11. The Guyi Garden itself is regarded to be one of the most important classical gardens in Shanghai. There are many pavilions, ponds, twisted brooks and bridges. Compared to Qibao, in Nanxiang there were no shops for visitors and it was much less crowded. So if you want peacefully see some traditional Chinese gardens, Nanxiang is definitely a good choice and the ticket fee of 12rmb is not bad. Other recommendable water towns around Shanghai are Zhujiajiao (朱家角), Fengjing (风景), Nanxun (南浔), Xitang (西塘)and Tongli (同理). Maybe I’ll have time later during this spring to visit some of them too. 

Shanghai Business District and the skyscrapers

Today I’m gonna write and post some pictures about the Shanghai business district around the Bund and Lujiazui in the Pudong area. The Bund is probably the most famous tourist spot for people visiting Shanghai and there are all the time hundreds of people taking pictures from the spectacular view to Pudong. It’s also the home for many Chinese and foreign companies to have their offices there, even though the Pudong side is way more popular. The Bund is located also very close to the East Nanjing Road metro station and the pedestrian street, which is a very big shopping street that has its other end at People’s Square. 

Me, my girlfriend and our friend wanted to visit one of the three observation decks for tourists on the skyscrapers on one very sunny and clear day. There are three decks you can visit and they all are located close to the Lujiazui metro station. The possibilities are the Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC). We decided to go to the SWFC which is the highest tower in Shanghai and its observation deck is the world’s tallest currently with its height of 474m. In total there were 3 decks on different levels but I strongly recommend to pay the extra 50yuan for adults to get to the very top because the view is that awesome, though its very cool from the lowest deck too. However, on the highest deck you can enjoy the view while walking on a glass floor looking directly down on the streets! If you want to enjoy the same view from your hotel window, there’s a Park Hyatt hotel at the SWFC too and it’s just below the observation decks on the floors between 79 and 93. 

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium and Shanghai Zoo

In this post I’d like to write some aspects about two tourist attractions Shanghai has to offer that focus specially on families with children but are still worth of seeing for everybody visiting Shanghai for a longer period of time. If you’re staying only a few days, I wouldn’t recommend to visit any of them, especially not the Zoo. The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium is located just next to the Huangpu River at the New Pudong site very close to the Lujiazui metro station. It is quite expensive with its 160rmb entry fee but the location is awesome and the whole aquarium is very well done and maintained. The aquarium has several exhibits, for example there is an own section for Chinese aquatic animals, South American, Australian, African, Cold Water, Polar zone and deep ocean zone. There are also many educational signboards telling visitors some facts about the specific animals. In its entirety the aquarium is not that huge compared to for example the one in Valencia, Spain but you can easily spend there a couple of hours. One good thing about the aquarium is that it’s completely indoors so during winter time it’s a perfect spot to visit in Shanghai! 

In contrast to the aquarium, the Shanghai Zoo is the complete opposite. It is pretty cheap, costing you only 40rmb to get in, but to get there you need to take a 40-minute metro ride from the centrum. I haven’t been to many Zoos in my life so far but this is clearly the worst I’ve seen. When you step into the Zoo, the first impressions might be quite positive. It looks big and spacious with some parks to hang out and have a picnic in between. However, once you see the first animals, most visitors start with the fish section followed by the lizards and snakes. The water in the aquariums looked very polluted and dirty, most of the lizards looked dead to me and there were some rats running in their cages. In most cases the situation didn’t look any better. Pretty much all the animals were treated very badly, they had nothing to do in their cages and the visitors threw garbage and food towards them. Even the number one attraction, the Giant Pandas looked so bored and unhappy. The zoo would have the potential to be a very good one but it seemed that there weren’t any workers taking care of the complex since it was very dirty. Maybe it can still be successful for the Chinese visitors but it surely is not attracting many foreigners without any improvements. There is, though, one place I strongly recommend you to go after the Zoo visit. We had some tasteful pizzas at a place called PizzaSun located close to the Zoo entrance.