Shanghai

From Beijing we took a bullet train to Shanghai. There was a bit of a queue and then a mad rush to get on, but that just seems to be how they do things here. Terribly uncivilized on my opinion. People queue jumping has been a regular occurrence and other people in the group and I have started body-blocking them. It gives us great pleasure.

The bullet train was pretty much just a train. Fairly comfortable, apparently very fast, but the scenery wasn't really interesting enough to stare at it for long.
The tour company let us down a bit on the logistics for this bit. We didn't get in to Shanghai till 18:30, we then waited almost an hour for the van to turn up to take our bags to the hotel. We had to get on the subway, followed by a 20 minute walk. It doesn't sound awful, but by the time we got to the hotel is was 20:30 and had not had any dinner. I was a little hangry.

Next day we took a bus into the city centre and the 'bund', a riverside promenade with a fantastic view of the central business district skyscrapers across the river. It was a bit grey, but not wet, and it did clear up later to be fairly sunny.

After some free time to wander along the bund taking photos we all trooped into the city centre, along the main pedestrian shopping street, to the museum for an hour or so. Traditional regional dress, masks, carved jade and furniture were the main features.

Having plans for the evening, I headed off by myself to the Yu Gardens, grabbing some steamed buns on the way rather than going for lunch with the group. I'm pleased I did as I got the gardens at lunchtime when they were quiet, and when the rest of the group went later in the afternoon it was rammed.

After the gardens I walked around the old town for a bit, and then back down to the bund to get tickets for a night time cruise on the river to see all of the buildings lit up. I took the 7pm cruise as it would be properly dark by then, and had dinner (ordered way too much) and sat on the bund enjoying the sunshine and the light reflecting off the skyscrapers.

After dark, the lit up city was spectacular, and the boat cruise was definitely a good way of seeing both sides of the river, though I did have difficulty finding the departure point!

After the cruise I took a taxi to the Shanghai tower, the second tallest building in the world. It has the highest viewing platform and the fastest elevator in the world, taking only a minute to go up 600 meters. My ears popped twice on the way up and 4 times on the way down! The view from the top of the lit up city was well worth it!

During the day I was approached 3 times by well dressed, professional looking chinese ladies, speaking excellent english, who asked me exactly the same questions. Where are you from, how long are you here, are you alone or in a group, how many in your group? The first lady then wanted me to go to a tea ceremony with her as she said the gardens would be very busy at lunchtime. I had my plan and I was sticking to it so I walked off. When the second lady asked me the same 2 questions I got really suspicious and told her she was the second person to ask those same questions. She claimed to just be being sociable, but I walked off then. When the 3rd lady started I just harrumphed and told her that whatever it was she was trying had already been attempted twice today and she should go away. Weird. Not even sure what they were after other than possibly getting kickbacks from guiding tourists to certain attractions.


Next morning I was up at 6am to make my way to Zhujiajiao ancient village. It is about 40 miles outside Shanghai, but I had found out that it was accessible on the subway, just 3 changes and 2 hours away. We were leaving at 4pm that afternoon, so I left extra early to ensure I was back in time. This wasn't on the trip's itinerary, or even one of the optional activities, but it was highly ranked on TripAdvisor and from the photos looked like a nice change of pace to the big city touring we had done so far.

I got there at 8:30 and after a 20 minute walk from the station I was walking along almost deserted picturesque canals. By the time I'd wandered around all there was to see it was getting a lot busier, so I headed back, stopping off at the post office to try to send some souvenirs home (that took 40 minutes as people there didn't speak english at all, and I'm not sure they had ever sent something outside of china before!).

Pot-luck pearls. Buy a clam, get the pearls inside.

Man fishing in the canal. Despite there being loads of fish, he caught nothing.

Fantastic rice cake(?) machine!


I made it back by 1:30, so had time for a leisurely lunch before it was off to the sleeper train for an overnight journey to Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors!