The Shanghai automobile museum

The number of museums this city houses is simply spectacular. Even a determined traveler could spend years to cover the breadth and depth. The more astonishing aspect is the variety of tastes the city can cater to. I was hence very surprised to find this hidden treasure - which I believe is the city's attempt to catchup with the Deutsch and Japanese titans.

Parking at Shimao Weifang rd..

Shanghai treats you with the best of automotive world in a very natural and seemingly organic way. I Initially thought: You don’t need a museum for cars here; if you want to meet the stars, we could stand at any intersection ( LuJiaZui, Jingan, Huaihai, or elsewhere), or:  take the elevator to the basement of any residential parking (Proof from our apartment inset). I was keen to find out what a museum could do - in a city where perhaps the streets had more to offer.

So off I went, like Alice - tumbling down the rabbithole. 

Getting here: (a) Cab - ~50 mins from Lujiazui or (b) Metro line 11- Anting road station (some 50 minutes from the business district) + 2 min cab/ 10 minute walk.

Cadillac M (1907

The beginning.. Respect your CTS - it has a rich heritage indeed.

Toyota Corolla - Nothing to say. Just thinking about the journey. From this to the becoming the largest selling automobile of the planet. Our family had one: Minus the boredom, it was one of the most dependable things that served us.

If you thought only the Rolls Royce of today's age looks classy; think again... You could walk around admiring this ancient but regal creature for hours.

The original Land Rover. Think of a modern day Discovery - Now we know why it is necessary to evolve, yet respect your heritage.

When Mr. Bond needs to quickly make a dash for Martinis.. The Aston Martin

Breathe… Say a silent prayer - the way you do before thinking of your God.. Good.. Now you may worship the two legends: 

The revolutionaries: The Ford Model T and the VW Beetle in the background 

American Muscle is a tricky area for me.. Not sure if I hate them or love them, but regardless of my religious beliefs, I have to bow to those three letters: GTO (Pontiac)

And then we have the flagbearer of American muscle - the Ford Mustang : in its original glory. Serving the American dream from 1964.... 

Now the God of three letters - BMW. This piece deserves more respect as it is one of the earlier one of that genre 'M'.  Proud to note that my friend Varun and his family have entered that relationship with an X4 - M recently.

Datsun 240 Z: This started the lineage of Z s - I maintain a personal bias here - The naturally aspirated Nissan 350 Z is one of the most exciting cars I have driven (from archives)

As I was wandering through this magical place, a thought occurred to me. I computed the probability of a friend and you- my dear reader - of trying to own these pieces. For all I know, you could (a) take the billionaire route or (b) the thievery route. Just in case you are planning a heist on this place, and would be kind enough to spare a car from your loot for your dear friend - I ought to submit my preference in advance.

Zhege (this one).. No no. Not the one on the left. The Lamborghini Countach - was indeed one of the most aerodynamic and aesthetically daring design in the history of automobile. While it has the naturally aspirated mid engine V12 mated to a perfect transmission, the Italian durability of those times scare me. Not the one on the extreme right either- the Honda NSX gets too much limelight and class. 

So if you do agree to purloin one for me - it'd be the one in the middle - the 8th generation Nissan Skyline please. Front engine, rear wheel drive - and the design discreet enough to bely the menacing intent of that 2.6 L twin turbo motor. This belongs to the right decade - where automotive engineering was still more about mechanics than electronics.

Other tips:

- The top floor houses a kids area. Kids of all ages could easily spend an hour here.

- Cafe serves decent stuff inside the museum, and a McDonalds at the entrance. For a wider variety, hit the Jiating Hui life mall near Anting road

The Swedish sophistication

Sweden for me meant Ikea, H&M, Volvo (pre-Geely days), Saab Gripen. All signifying  simple designs with supremacy at sophistication. If you want clarity, please check out a simple desk from Ikea - and compare it with an expensive regal furniture in a swanky showroom in your town. The latter: with its over the top design would be expensive as it promises heavy teak to last a lifetime. But you realize you want to dump it when you have it, as it has little to offer on the ergonomics front and at home - doesn't look like the way it did in the catalogue. To understand my point better- drive a Volvo S-60 or fly a Saab Gripen.

So in my mind, it has been etched long ago:  Swedish = clean, simple and classy. One of the reasons why I coaxed Sona into considering a visit. 

To start with, the Swedish simplicity went into an overkill mode. We were silly enough to fly Ryan air, which did get us from Charleroi to Skavsta in one piece each, and then the Skavsta airport welcomed us with its bare bones. Clean, but very skeletal. The bus took around 1.5 hours to get us to Stockholm city center. Moral of the story - (a) Do check with experienced people before planning your trip, your best friend (google.com) cannot advise you on the 'experience' part (b) avoid being Scrooge.

Stockholm turned out to be the biggest surprise for us in Europe. While neither of us can pin point the touristy points (no highest peak, the ancient structures were not the ancient-est, no Paris/ Swiss hypes), the city has a character which triumphs and will always remain stamped in our minds. To make it more interesting, we stayed at the Mosebacke hostel - and that turned out to be an interesting experience as well. Right in the heart of the city, it helped us move around quickly.

The palace, the museums, you could pick anything. If we had the time, we would love do that for a couple of more days - landing in old town/ Gamla Stan in the evening, exploring the alleys, drifting into any of the shops/ buildings (museum or not, all of them have such a rich history - check out this simple pub; the basement was older than several countries) and finally bidding the evening  goodbye in the typical European way - in a pub.

 

One good spooky walking tour we suggest is: https://www.stockholmghostwalk.com/en/

Those words have a new meaning for us post Sweden: class and sophistication. Lets see if anything can dethrone Sweden's place there.

The Nobel prize venue

Netherlands: ingenuity and terror

Having sampled Swiss trains, driving and walking in Europe, Sona and I decided to explore the bus option. The journey involved crossing Belgium and getting to Amsterdam. We boarded the liner and enjoyed the sights as we traversed through Belgian landscape. After Antwerp, our bus meandered through the border town of Eindhoven, the birth place of the conglomerate called Phillips. 

The town got me thinking - the ingenuity of the little country. Small national icons that went on to reign supreme in the world (think Shell, Unilever, Phillips).  From use of pumps to drain water out of its cities to modern time leader in clean energy, the Dutch know how to lead on the innovation front.

We were woken out of our slumber by frantic activity and announcements in Dutch. Hurriedly, we picked up our belongings and got down the bus. As we were in the process of waking up, we figured that the place had little semblance to our intended destination - Amsterdam. Great snakes! We were at Utrecht!

Well, not much to write about the place; just that the largest cycle parking was visible (more on that phenomenon later); we spotted the station and purchased tickets for Amsterdam and reached by the evening.

Amsterdam - I can say I was not at all disappointed. My former image of a wannabe town marked with sleaze had to make way for a city with a rich history, freedom, indomitable spirit, creativity and its byproducts. 

In Amsterdam, though our recommendations range from the river tour, red light area, etc., we recommend that you explore as much as you can. We have a feeling that whatever museum, alley you walk into - you will not be disappointed.

Besides Amsterdam, the must visit place we recommend is Den Haag (The Hague). Its claim to fame is as host of the International Court of Justice and a major host of other UN offices.

The multilateral aspect aside, it has a beauty and spirit of its own. We made a beeline for the sea front where the winds from the North, having melted their share of ice from the Arctic met us with full ferocity.

But alas, our travel sojourns will make way for a more immediate problem that is plaguing our times. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to talk about terrorism and the Dutch connection.

Kindly note that terrorism has taken many names and faces. Some of them are: Al-qaida, Lashkar Taeba and Cycling.

The latter is the one whose origination and propagation may be attributed to Netherlands. Some statistics:

While you may be conned into an image of suave, environment friendly and healthy cyclists; deeper experience lifts this veil to identify the peril to your life that cyclists pose.

• These simple machines, at the hands of a well built European Meneer or Mejuffrouw can attain unimaginable speeds - posing grave danger to themselves and the innocent public in general
• 
  Picturize your careless Shubham walking around in search of the Heineken museum and poof - a cyclist just whisked by. A lazy turn to answer to Sona's voice just saved him from being knocked off
• He curls his arms by a couple of degrees and….. Swish….  A nano second's delay would have meant that his arm would have been ripped off by a speeding maniac
• Later in the evening - we saw a first - Drunken cyclists!! Later, there were high cyclists - connoisseurs of space cakes of Ams. While the police around the world does a good job to keep ineberiated motorists in check; I doubt if there is a law to protect us from such peril.
  

In Europe, I always drove with a dark cloud on my head. I was told that cyclists have the right to be reckless, but if I were to touch them in a car (even for no fault of my own), I had two options:

1. Escape and wait for the legal system to catch me eventually 

2. Get out of the car, burn my documents and head voluntarily to jail for a couple of decades

I am told that the end result is not very different in both the cases.

Note: With no other option in sight, the author has joined the movement and now cycles to work every day.