The city of beauty

If Beijing does not seem to even try to please its inhabitants and visitors, Shanghai puts her make up and high heels on and goes smiling around.

Beautiful, clean, modern, clever, business and pleasure oriented. Even driving seems to have become less chaotic and less noisy.

Shanghai loves height: Pudong's Oriental Pearl, the funny "bottle opener" and higher up, the elevated highway and the Bund promenade. Not just traditional roof corners but even imported art deco, as if changing its mind, point to the sky. Even the traditional Shanghai-style fans have got sort of a summit.  

And Shanghai loves teasing: a silk quipao, a St.Paul-meets-Big-Ben-strip, a Quartier Latin artsy corner with a Sponge Bob exhibition in Tiangzifang, a superfast bullet train and a rich albeit completely unreliable flight schedule.