Panic ensued. This meant I had roughly five hours to get ready instead of 17 hours. What did I do? I changed my flight of course – to a few days later – because the other flights to Shanghai were full that day, anyway.

Ah, the wonders of the web world in which one can make last minute decisions because one can.

When I show up in Shanghai a couple of days later, it’s 4 degrees Celsius and hazy. The boy who meets me at the airport says it’s not pollution. “We are not as bad as Beijing,” he says.

I love the friendly rivalry that exists between all cities around the world even if they are part of the same country – Melbourne vs Sydney, Kowloon vs Hong Kong Island, Pudong vs Puxi – in this aspect, we are all the same.

I am headed to the Pudong New Area, another slice of Shanghai that is growing faster than I can change my flight. Over a decade ago, Pudong was rice fields – now it has a New Area which could be even bigger, better and richer than the old Pudong.

The New Area is where Kerry Parkside is – an integrated lifestyle development which includes the priciest villas in Shanghai, apartments, malls, shops and the new Kerry Hotel, the newest brand under the Shangri-La group. (More of the hotel in a later post)

As awed as I am by the transformation of the Singapore skyline – last night, I was out on Marina Bay, marveling again at how much has changed and this time, seeing Marina Bay Sands fully completed – coming to Shanghai makes me think that Singapore is a bit like Mickey Mouse to Shanghai’s Lion King.

Nothing wrong with Mickey Mouse of course, he is adorable and enduring but Lion King is a full-blown spectacle.

On the highway from Pudong New Area to the other side of Shanghai, I see the remnants of the World Expo site which gazillions of people visited, 96% of whom I am told were domestic. The Chinese Pavilion remains open for anyone still interested, and one venue has been taken over by Mercedes Benz for events.

You wouldn’t believe too that the Kerry Hotel had just opened the day I arrived. Their first customer was a local resident who booked 11 rooms (some of which were suites) for his family and friends to have a mahjong party over the weekend.

By early evening, their brewery, The Brew, was packed with young Chinese executives, working in the area, and expatriates living in the neighbourhood.

And The Cook, their restaurant which is more like an upscale food court with 11 cooking stations, was bustling with young families and groups of friends, all trying out the new kid on the block. In the Cheese room, I saw locals sampling different cheeses as they sipped wine.

Back at The Brew, I saw general manager George Wee brimming from ear to ear and enjoying his cigar. The place was now packed with General Motors executives who, after their function in the hotel’s ballroom upstairs, looked like they were settling in for a long night of drinking.

This is indeed a new China packed with lots of I-want-I-want and I-can-spend kind of consumers that the whole world wants.

I also suspect that in another 10 years or maybe less, I may well be visiting the Pudong Newer Area.