First night out in Shanghai

During our first official day in our new country we decided that we must do what most tourists do in Shanghai and that is go to the Bund. The Bund is an area which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River and refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road. We took a taxi from our hotel to the closest Subway station and then took the No2 Subway to the Bund area. Although very cheap to travel by taxi the traffic at peak times can make it a very long ride so the subway was much more quick. The subway was very clean and not too crowded, it seemed to be mostly the younger generation who were riding it. All signs and announcements were in both Chinese and English.
We then made our way to the Super Brands Mall which is the largest mall in Pudong and has 10 levels. The stores include well known names such as CK Jeans, Best Buy, H&M, Hilfiger and Esprit not to mention restaurants like Hooters, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Starbucks, Burger King, McDonalds and the Chinese favorite KFC.
We went to Domani which was an Italian restaurant overlooking the river on the 4th floor. Food was okay, the ceasar salad turned out to be a basic garden salad with ceasar dressing and the pasta was good - but the view was spectacular!! The amount of boats going up and down the river was unbelievable. The tour boats were a lit up and many had huge screens playing advertisements. The working boats and barges were travelling with no lighting what so ever - and this is the middle of the night, how they saw where they were going is beyond me!!
After diner we wanted to go over to the Bund side and were told that the quickest way to get there was to take the Bund tourist tunnel. The Bund Tourist Tunnel claims to use the latest technologies and provide you with information on Chinese people, history, culture, and science. It is more like cheap disco lights with blowing tinsel!!! May be fun for small kids but I found it tacky and lame - not to mention expensive in Chinese terms. A one way ticket was 30 yuan which is abut $4.25.
Once we reached the other side we were swarmed with people trying to sell you everything you can possibly imagine as well as many people begging for money. The Chinese beggars are much different that those you see in let's say downtown Ottawa!!! Most of these people missing limbs and are badly disfigured - it is very sad. We walked along the Bund for a while and took a ton of pics and tried to soak it all in. We then decided to make our way back to the hotel - not as easy as one who think. When we walked to the taxi stand we were immediately swarmed by all the drivers trying to convince you to take their taxi, some of these cars did not seem very legit as they had no sign on the car. Then some drivers didn't want to take you where you want to go, as with everything in China you have to be good at negotiations!!! We finally made our way back to the hotel, the 20 min ride cost us 18 yuan which is about $2.50, what a bargain.
Transportation is very cheap, a bus ticket is 1 yuan which is 14 cents Canadian and the subway is anywhere from 3 to 8 yuan depending on your distance (42 cents to a max of $1.14). You can buy a smart card that you load like a debit card and they can be used for all modes of in-city transportation: bus, subway, light rail, taxi, and ferry.
Food can be very inexpensive to crazy expensive. To go to a local Chinese restaurant a group of 4 people can eat for well under $20CND but here at our Hotel the breakfast buffet is $30 a person!!! If you want to eat like the locals you will save a ton of money but if you want to dine like a Westerner you will pay.