PlanetPTC In Shanghai

Today I flew across the Pacific into Shanghai in China from Las Vegas in the US and I have mixed feelings about doing that. The bad news is that I missed the 4th of December completely. The good news is that in spite of the 20 hour trip I am feeling no jet lag because the missing day canceled it out. Crazy!

After attending Autodesk University is Las Vegas last week, I am here in Shanghai to attend PlanetPTC which starts tomorrow. I just checked into the Le Meridian hotel in Sheshan, the venue of the conference. PTC PR was waiting for me in the hotel lobby and saw to it that I got checked in without problems.

If you have been following me on Twitter, you will have noticed that one of the first things I bitch (or praise, which is rare) about a hotel after I check in is its WiFi. In the case of the Le Meridian, I cannot bitch about the WiFi because there isn’t any.

And speaking of Twitter, China blocks Twitter, Facebook and a bunch of other social networking sites. So I will not be able to live tweet the PlanetPTC event. In any case this hotel does not have WiFi. So I will not be able to live blog it either.

Here are some pictures I took on my way from the airport to the hotel. Click the images for larger views.

On the way out of the airport

I have never seen anything like this before. That’s my cab driver well shielded from me.

There’s construction going on all over the place in Shanghai. Looks like the city is expanding rapidly.

This is another sight I found odd. Young lads all decked up in suits handing out some pamphlets to people in cars.