I’m always a little weirded out arriving in a new city at night, especially abroad. You can’t visualize the geography from the plane, and dark areas feel closed off.

Well Shanghai was nothing like that.
Firstly, yes it is very “foggy” but not chokingly so. The inside of our cab was far worse than any streets.

Naturally we were pleased to receive an upgrade at the Yangtze, an old world and very small Art Deco hotel near People’s Square. Multiple balconies are always welcome. But what is it with boutique hotels and transparent bathrooms?

Venturing out we were met by huge crowds, police breaking up a presumably illegitimate clothing vendor on the street, Engrish department store signs, and a surprising amount of Christmas Cheer.

Only slightly hungry we tried to find something close but challenging in the unspoken “if we walk in and don’t know what we are doing let’s be OK with that” way. Alright, so we discussed that on the street. Still! Noodles with meats!

Feeling confident after only an hour in the city we set out in search of rooftop bars. None of that non-rooftop garbage. The Royal Meridian was acceptable. For a $30 cover they were doing 3 cocktails and the, um, festive atmosphere as you can see below.

We asked our waitress if there would be a Christmas countdown — something we admittedly made up (though in our defense, there were NYE party favors) — which she quickly denied. 50 seconds later there was a countdown.

Rounding out the night was a midnight gift opening in our room back at the Yangtze. As you can see Layla’s gift went over well. I got these cool scratch-off travel maps. Won’t stop until all the gold is gone!!!

Tomorrow we head to Hangzhou!