Three on the Bund – Part II

I decided to write an article about Three on the Bund the first time I visited and posted an article for it. However, due to the limited time I had last time, I didn’t talked too much about the fabulous place. Now I’d like to continue the article. So the Three on the Bund – Part II is here.

The Building

The fantastic character of the city of Shanghai is the old houses. The history from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of 20th centaury left the city big wealth. The old stone tower at #3 on the Bund, where Three on the Bund is located. is one of the excellent building.

There are many buildings on the Bund, but seldom do I see any building shining as this one. I visited some buildings. Splendid as the outside looks, the interior of the builds are very poor.

The building was renovated by Michael Graves, a guru in industrial design arena. The cooperate and brand identity will be designed by Alan Chan, the designer for Coco-cola Chinese logo.

Three on the Bund

There are 7 floors of the building. ARMANI opens its flagship store of Shanghai on the first floor. Most of the cloths are labeled with 6 digits price in RMB. I saw a t-shirt at 1800 RMB. It is definitely a symbol of expensive goods for local people since a suite of cloth will cost them whole year or many year’s saving. There are two stores on the first floor: Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani.

The second floor is another fashion store and a Evian SPA. The third store is my favorite art gallery. It was a pity that the gallery was under renovation and the new exhibition should have started. If I were in Shanghai, I will go there and see the exhibition with Wendy.

The forth floor is the French Restaurant – Jean Georges. There are big dark green curtains hanging from the tall roof. Whampoa Club, the Shanghainese cuisine restaurant is the on the fifth floor.

The sixth floor is still empty and I don’t know what it will be. The top floor, the New Height Bar is a good place to go. It has great views – as shown here: Three on the Bund, but the price is not as high as I expected.

A cup of Tsing Tao bear costs 35 RMB and smoothies costs 48 RMB. What do you think? It is definitely not a cheap price compared to the 1 RMB ice-cream in IKEA and 2 RMB drink at Lawson store. It is just the reasonable price for a bar like this.

Some foreigner complained to me that there is “beer discrimination” for foreigners. They don’t understand why drink is so expensive for places foreigners gather and so cheap at places where local people go (like local restaurants). Well. Hehe. No comment on this.

The View

Shanghai don’t have seashore. If you do argue Shanghai is located besides the sea, I would say, yes, but Shanghai’s seashore is too far and the sea is too dirty. (picture).

If you do want to find some place that give you the feeling of seashore, visit the New Height Bar. Sitting at the corner to see the wide Huang Pu river flowing down, the buildings of Pudong spreading besides the river, the splendid Bund buildings, and crowded cars and buses running along the busy road of Zhongshan East 1 Rd, I just feel I am at the sea shore…

More and More Bars are Moving in

M on the Bund is more famous before. It is on the top of the nearby building – #5 on the Bund. Wendy’s friend just opened another bar at the basement of the same building.

Ron Gluckman wrote an article for Wall Street Journal: In Shanghai’s Bund, they’re partying like it’s 1939. Exactly what I see there. The spirit of the Bund is coming back and people start to party at the Bund again.

P.S. We then went to another party at Xintiandi 11:50 PM and get back home at around 2:00 AM again. This time, Wendy ordered a cup of cold water and she was charged 65 RMB for it. Ops. No. I bet it is discrimination. :-D

4 thoughts on “Three on the Bund – Part II

  1. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that places charge the sort of price people are willing to pay. It costs quite a bit to run a fancy, trendy designer place, so I don’t see why the beer shouldn’t cost more there.

    What bothered me about beer in China was that the only thing that could be found was watery lager (with exception of a few places in Suzhou that sold Guinness, and of course M on the Bund). I’ve heard that Tsingtao makes a Porter, but was never able to find it.

    I did find a place called Paulaner in Shanghai, after the famous German weissbier, but while their weissbier looked great it tasted nothing. I complained to the waiter who didn’t understand what I meant, but said the beer was brewed in Shanghai by a German brewmaster. I assume they took away the taste to make it appeal to the Chinese market, but it seems really bizarre to set up a big, fancy bar to sell weissbier to the Chinese and then take away all the taste. If colour is the only thing that distinguishes the beer, why bother? :-(

  2. I think the multinationals spend all their time changing the taste of products to suite the market! Its their raison d’etre. Guinness in Dublin has a unique flavour. The answer for Lars Marius is if you don’t like it don’t drink it.

  3. I hope you tried the Wampoa Club Restaurant (黄浦会)on the fifth floor, it’s a great place to have dinner on a Friday night. :-)

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