Hi from Shanghai! I’m leaving for Thailand tomorrow so I thought I would finally write my first post about Shanghai, having spent about 3 weeks here already 😛
Since I’m on a budget (a tighter one now that I’m unemployed >.<), I decided to try one of budget Asian airlines, China Spring. Instead of Narita and Haneda airports which charge ridiculous landing fees, I flew to Shanghai from Ibaraki Airport, a tiny little airport 2 hours north of Tokyo. The airport is less fancy, and they don’t serve you the 1 free cup of Diet Coke and crappy airplane food on flight, but I will tolerate it for the $300 it saved me in airfare. The only catch is the airline only allows you to bring 15kg of baggage (carry on + checked) and charges 1500 yen per extra kilogram! It sure adds up quick if you are not careful. They also made the passengers exercise on the plane. That was entertaining.
My first impression of Shanghai from the plane is not so great. Why is the water brown?! I was warned of the pollution and was fully prepared for breathing in some foul air, but I was still shocked to see the water change from blue to brown as we got close to shore. Once I got there, I actually found Shanghai to be a lot cleaner than I remember. There’s no litter and the air was relatively clear except for a few big streets. Bathrooms are clean!
I spent the first 2 weeks in Shanghai just settling in. The area I live in is called Xujiahui, and if I had a lot of money and enjoyed shopping everyday, this would be heaven. The intersection I live closest to is surrounded by 4 shopping malls. Yes, there’s a shopping mall on each corner! I quickly discovered that I can’t afford to buy anything in these shopping malls except for food. Dollars just aren’t worth much these days and the cost of living in Shanghai has just skyrocketed. I also quickly discovered the wonderful world of Taobao, but that’s a story for another time.
So my first adventure is Shanghai is the JZ festival. I got excited when I saw the name — my very own festival! I felt very special. It’s actually an annual jazz festival started by a local jazz club named after me 😛 The event is on its eighth year and it’s the biggest jazz festival in China, and one of the biggest in all of Asia. There are performances all week across town, ending with the outdoors concert series lasting for 2 whole days. 200 RMB will get you a day pass, which gets you entrance to see all the performances. A much better deal than ACL!
The venue for the festival is at the site for the Shanghai Expo. We got there pretty late, around 4 in the afternoon, and walked into a performance by Coco Zhao and the JZ Big Band. Coco Zhao is a famous Shanghai jazz vocalist form my home province Hunan who has an equally famous female alter ego, Cocolicious. Also performing at the JZ Club is the JZ Big Band, an ensemble of jazz musicians from all over the world currently living in Shanghai.
There are various stages at the festival, including the one for local grassroots performers, Love My Music….
The Earth Lounge, which had some electronic + jazz mix that I’m not sure I’m a fan of…
JZ School, a stage for the younger jazz lovers…
A Blue Grass stage…
The River, where international stars shine…
And the Green Note, where the big name performers roll.
Unfortunately I didn’t know most of these people 🙁 But I did know a few of the performers at the end of the night, who were famous pop singers.
James Li (李泉) is a popular song writer and singer from China. I think most of his songs are melodic ballads, so I was curious to see what kind of jazz performance he would put on. It was balad mixed with electronica, and somewhat of an interesting combination.
We were hungry by then so we decided to grab some food. There were a ton of food vendors by the river, and the grilled skewers were yum!
Hey you can have some magic beer at my bar 😉
The riverside also had a gorgeous view of the stadium.
But we had to hurry back to make the next performance, by one of my favorite singers, Shunza! She has a beautiful voice and writes wonderful songs that I’ve memorized by heart, and I was super excited to see her live for the first time.
The performance was everything I expected and more! She sang all my favorite songs and added a few jazz classics, which really showcased her smooth voice and impeccable technique. Her band was also a fun ensemble and threw out quite a few impromptu solos that wowed the crowds.
After her final solo, it was time to head off to the big stage to see Khalil Fong (方大同), a super popular star from Hong Kong who’s also called the “soul boy.” Since I wanted to watch Shunza until the very end, by the time we got to the other stage, the plaza was already super crowded.
Yup. We were this far.
We watched a few songs from the back of the crowd, then decided to make an early exit to avoid the end of the night rush. To our surprise, there were actually shuttles that took us to the subway station!
We finished the night with some taro milk from Niu Niu. Gotta love all the late night opening stores in China!
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