When you have a free afternoon on a sunny fall day in downtown Shanghai, what do you do?

Go check out the famous shopping district of course! Our hotel (Waldorf Astoria) that is right on the Bund is only a few blocks away from Nanjing Lu (Nanjing Road): 5th avenue of Shanghai. A combination of high end international brands, local brands, tourist junk and counterfeit knock offs. What category is the scarf above in your opinion?

Interestingly, we were planning on staying at the Shanghai Fairmount hotel which is quite famous, but all of a sudden, a major “leader” in China wanted to use the hotel for a meeting and everyone, including store owners was asked to leave. Now every entrance is guarded by armed secret service types…I am not sure they were thrilled with my picture taking so we did not stick around for long!

One of the unusually unique aspects of the Waldorf Astoria is the “Long Bar” which supposedly the longest bar in the world. We had a happy hour glass of wine and some snacks. The wine list was a little disappointing, but it was a good atmosphere.

Unfortunately, we forgot our costumes so we could not join the costume party, but it was fun to see that quite a few people enjoy the Halloween celebration around the world. When out shopping in the the big Times Square atmosphere and enjoying a meat based “moon cake”, it was almost tempting to check out one of the haunted houses.

Stay tuned… planning on checking out the French Quarter tomorrow and there may be a surprise site that might not be expected in the upcoming posting 😏