Should I stay or should I go or a tale of two cities and 2 Shanghai spots

I live in a country that basically forces you to use apps like 'Airpocalypse' this pokes a little bit of fun or that horrid air that you breath in on a daily basis. It's a country of internet censorship and chaos. It's love-able though, because it's so random. For someone contemplating to leave, this might be of help, but that is not me, I am in that place where I am neither in the honeymoon nor do I hate the place - everything is pretty level-headed and balanced more or less (as much as you probably can).

It's a temporary place, but you get attached to Shanghai, but somehow I think Hong Kong might be the next logical step. Let's see when that happens. I can't even explain why I love Hong Kong so much, but again, it is the main star in a lot of movies and the reason I came to Shanghai was pretty much Kung Fu movies and then the realization that people (unfortunately) don't solve there differences with Kung Fu when they got underpaid for rice wine here, so the study of Chinese and Economics helped a bit to ground my reality. So here I am.

Let's have a quick look at how good those two cities look at the silver screen, here is Hong Kong and here is Shanghai, Shanghai is missing Spike Jonze's 'Her', but the Hong Kong list wins out with some amazing flicks, definitely watch 'Infernal Affairs' and the brilliant old school heroic bloodshed classic 'The Killer'

There is amazing stuff to do in Shanghai and sometimes you just have to open your eyes. Get ready for some really touristic tips as I have guided some friends and friends of friends through the city over the years:

This weekend I came to enjoy the what I would call 'private cinema' and man, that is a blast. In HongKou district not far from my good old Zhabei district (where I used to live for the longest time). Who in Shanghai hasn't head the phrase 'Zhabei the place to be', eh?

So this cinema is located on the third floor of the One Prime Mall on North Sichuan Road. Look out for some Avengers posters and some KTV looking rooms, as well as a booking counter that looks like a Hawaii bar. What you can do there is find a room for 4 people (up to 11) and have a seat in some super comfy 90's massage chairs (that vibrate to the sound) and hopefully you brought enough beers and food to go with how ever many movies you want to watch on a massive screen with your friends. It's nothing short of awesome and I did actually like the 3D effect in there, so make sure to try that out. We were watching Kingsman: The Secret Service - a really recommendable spy action flick with great leads and memorable action scenes and Prometheus - a movie I somehow have not had the opportunity to watch and that I enjoyed, but it is kind of slow and I wish there was more that the movie had to show in terms of character design, but again, this movie got way to much flak at the time it came out, for no reason at all.

Another secret tip lies deep within the the famous YuYuan garden, while you will be able to find the garden itself in every guide about Shanghai, there is not far from the temple and right next to the shadow play theatre, a little shop where you can take pictures on a rickshaw in historical clothes, usually you see a crowd gathered there and a few flights of steps lead up to that place, so head up those 5 stairs and enter the elevator on the right to the top floor, don't worry, usually people just wonder what you do there, but it seems to be an elevator nobody uses. Anyway this leads to the quietest place in this busy tourist hotspot with the best view, you will figure the rest out and I feel okay with disclosing this awesome spot here and hope not every guide will pick that up...

Enough with the tips and have a look what's trending on Twitter, people disclose their salaries, mostly in tech and in the US, but it's definitely interesting and refreshing. Apparently the ball began rolling with this article. I will have a work related post coming in the future, so this is how I tie this up and as you can see there is always a thin red line through those articles, there is mostly something about Batman, a lot of me and a little dash of hopefully helpful or insightful information.