While our itinerary had a nice general plan for our daytime sightseeing, our evening plans were put in the hands of our friend Gianni. He and his friends did an excellent job in this department.
First, I have to say how much Tony and I enjoyed the fact that two of Gianni’s friends, Jo and Flo, hung out with us every night we were here. All of these guys work full time day jobs but they kicked it late every night with us. As mentioned in a previous post, Jo is from London and Flo (Florian) is from Switzerland. They have each been here a few months working for various companies and are part of that strong Western influence in Shanghai.
We seemed to have begun each night with drinks at Gianni’s place. On our first night, we all grabbed dinner and then a drink at a bar nearby called Monkey Bar. That night was a great start, but it was the tamest night for us here.
On our second night we went to a nightclub called “Mint” on “models night.” These guys know the scene so well they had our names on the list. We were out until about 2am.
Night 3 was amazing. We started at another nightclub called Bar Rouge. We got in here on the VIP list as well. This club is located on the rooftop of the 24th floor of a building right on The Bund. We had an amazing view across the water from the amazing Pudong skyline at night. From there, we took a taxi to a place a bit closer to Gianni’s pad. Fittingly this place was called “The Apartment” and the DJ was going strong with some classic 90s hip hop. This night saw us out until about 3am. And then we even got some noodles from a street vendor at that hour. It was like something out of a movie.
I didn’t think any of us would have any energy left for our fourth and final night in Shanghai. But we rallied. Gianni’s roommate Tim had been on business in Beijing on our first two nights, and then he took it easy Thursday night. But he joined us Friday night, as did another of Gianni’s friends. 6 Westerners back on the town. And go big we did.
We got a later start, heading out the door at nearly 1am. We walked over to a night club in the French concession part of town (near Gianni’s place) called Geisha. Fun place. We then popped into the bar next store (Flamingo?) for a bit before finally ending up in the craziest one of them all: Hollywood. The place was loud, packed, and going strong. We were there well beyond 3am and got back home around 4am.
The one major observation of all the places we went every night was the Western influence and clientele. We didn’t see too many native Chinese. But we met lots of people from all over – mostly Europe, but also some Americans and Latin Americans. A few others from a few places in Asia as well. I suppose we mostly saw these folks out at night because this is the crowd our friends run with and the bars and clubs mostly cater to the higher end Western clientele. There are roughly 500,000 Westerners living and working in Shanghai.
I heard a lot about the nightlife in Shanghai and it certainly lived up to expectations. I don’t think we would have found a lot of these places had we come on our own. It was so nice to have a friend like Gianni here who knows his way around and was so excited to take us out on the town. And we’re even more pleased to have made a few more friends along the way. Cheers to Flo, Jo, and Tim – and especially Gianni, who we now have to leave as we venture onwards beyond Shanghai. But we may welcome that now – we’ve got to get some sleep sometime!
