Zhouzhuang town and the temple of two religions

Location: Regal International, Shanghai

Stars: 5
Cost: $140 pernight
Note: Best breakfast ever and excellent Butterfly massage parlour around the corner, excellent 1 hour foot massage for 6 euros!

Just as I remembered from my recent last visit just over a year ago Shanghai was as pacy as the pulsating neon lights that dappled the impressive skyline. The skyscrapers looked taller and prouder than ever and the illuminating light shows were somehow even more sophisticated and far reaching than my minds eye had recalled. A little like meeting a cousin who just sprouted a few inches Shanghai felt as if it had done the same. It was good to be back. It felt like I had landed my natural Asian home. I'm not sure why I felt so comfortable in this massive city! Maybe it’s because I now have a few friends here or perhaps it's because it feels a bit like a racier frontier mixture of Sao Paulo and Hong Kong with a dash of the wild west San Francisco gold rush thrown in for good measure which appeals to me. I'm not sure - for whatever reason it felt great.

In Shanghai the immersion tour took off into another gear and we started by visiting our new 5,000 seater offices which are currently under construction and will be ready next May. Once finished they will be the most modern offices that Microsoft has in its portfolio anywhere in the world. Next was updates from the business from our general managers of our servers and tools division and our MSN Online services. Then lovely and soft spoken twinkled eyed Sophie Xu, a very young local in her mid twenties just promoted to Staffing Manager gave us a very interesting recruitment update on how the recruitment challenges where unfolding on the ground. Overall an excellent update and I now feel a little more assured of my understanding of how Chinese culture and Microsoft’s business is operating in this amazing country. Needless to say words such as “harmony”, “sustainability”, “face” are as important here as “success”, “profit” and “confidence” are in Western society.

On Friday morning we got a chance to  get out of the city an hour and a half from Shanghai and visit the famous “Venice of China”. An old city of canals and waterways quite similar to the real thing in Italy but with much more dilapidated building and far far more less tourism crap that you get all to often everywhere else.  The town itself was called Zhouzhuang and it was famous for its pearl selling, both ocean and river, and also for its fertile farming land mass which spread for many many miles almost as far in as the metropolises borders. While there I picked up 6 single pearls which I had authenticated by one of the local Microsoft staff who seemed to know all there needed to be known about these little beauties and I also picked up a three tubed local bell top flute which I really like.

Probably the highlight of the visit though was a visit to one of the few temples we saw on the entire trip which practiced Taoism and Confucianism. While there I got my fortune told which you can check out in the video.

Great trip and definitely worth a gander if you get to Shanghai.