Come with me...

I touched down in Shanghai on Monday evening and walked right into the midst of a typhoon rain. It was windy (so umbrella is useless here) and wet (it rained throughout Monday). Thank goodness I had my raincoat with me for I stood in line at the taxi stand for more than 30 minutes getting wind and rain in my face.

I was there to attend our annual agency meeting, so it was nice to see everyone again, the agents from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, S.Korea, Australia and our colleagues from the UK office.

Since it was a working trip, I shall bring you all to work with me. Please join me on my journey to the office...

This is the view from our hotel lobby. We stayed at the Bund Hotel, which is conveniently located in the business district and merely 5 minutes walk to our office.

This creature 'protects' the hotel building against any 'bad' elements.

We're on the way to the office.

Shanghai boasts of many gleaming skyscrapers, including this building with a golden facade.

This building managed to incorporate traditional architecture into the modern facade.

Sadly, you can still find beggars in some places. These 'mother-and-child' beggars work for syndicates. It's really heart breaking to see improvished kids leading such a sad life in a big city where the rich is openly flaunting their wealth.

Shanghai is such a built-up city, the only way to cope with the heavy traffic is to build more elevated highways like this one on the left. Still, traffic gets really congested during peak hours, it's a nightmare.

We're almost there. Our office is located in the new office building in the background. In Shanghai, it's not unusual to find old residential houses right next to a spanking new office complex.

This is the little alley right next to our office building.

That's the beautifully designed Westin Hotel in the background, featuring a lotus-shaped structure at the top.

Most of the locals cycle to work.

This is probably the last time I will be seeing this old sprawling estate across our office building. It's sitting on prime land, which is probably targetted for redevelopment very soon.

While office workers are working in the cool air-conditioned offices in the skyscraper, the folks below are busy transporting their wares on these old tricycles.

We're approaching the office.

Getting into the building...

From the office lobby, you can look out at the old estate across the road.

Here's a bird's eye view of the old estate from our office on the 12th level.

My colleagues and fellow agents.

Lunch break!!

My lunch - chicken and vegetables with rice.

We snacked on bananas too. I can't understand why the guys are so obsessed with the bananas, they even marked their names on the bananas.

Bananas, anyone?

More bananas?

The vendor delivered a tub of szechuan hot and sour soup without any spoons but our guys are so clever... they poured the soup into plastic cups!

We had dinner at Chinese restaurants on both nights...too much to eat, plenty of cold and hot dishes. Some of the dishes, like the chicken feet below didn't go down too well...

Our host, a supplier, ordered this and I believe none of my colleagues ate any of this. Well, I didn't.

The famous Shanghainese dumpling was delicious.

Look at the amount of chilli that came in this dish. The fried chicken pieces were really good (sorry, all eaten up) and this is all that's left!

We went for after-dinner drinks and this is what happens after having too many drinks... Keith (the baby of our group) started playing with cherries and popcorn.

Just before I left Shanghai, I took some photos of the famous People's Square..

The same place, taken during the day.... and at night.

There were lots of people on the streets at 4pm on a weekday.

Interesting traditional architecture.

Hot roasted chestnuts.

Lots of people everywhere.

Finally, I got some nuts and snacks from the shop before leaving for the airport.

You can also find more pictures in my previous story: Shanghai Nights and Days.