Pudong International Airport soon to be three times the fun

The China Daily reports that an expansion to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport is expected to be completed by 2007 and cost $1.23 billion. The expansion includes a third runway and a new terminal, upping the airport's capacity from 20 million passengers per year to 60 million. Eleven million used the airport last year.

[T]he new terminal's three-storey design will channel passengers more efficiently. International departures will be handled on the top floor, international arrivals on the middle floor and domestic arrivals and departures will take up the bottom floor.

"The waiting hall for international departures in the new terminal will be twice the size of the current hall," Guo said. "New security checks will also be introduced, which will subject passengers on some arriving domestic flights to checks."

That's great and all, but can a brutha get some WiFi up in this mofo?!? How about some decent restaurants and shops -- places that people would actually want to go to. For one of the coolest cities in the world, Shanghai has a pretty lame international airport. We were in Detroit's recently -- Detroit! -- and it kicked ass. There were trees! With birds in them! Pudong airport bosses, you can't even get a Starbucks in there? Starbucks approached us about opening a shop in our living room last week. What about McDonald's? Not that we particularly like it, but anything is better than the current selection of crap.

While China Daily said "designs for phase two of the expansion were unveiled yesterday by the Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design Group," the paper's website did not provide us with said designs. So you get a photo of Tim Robbins from the movie Code 46 (filmed in the Pudong International Airport).