Shanghai - Skyscrapers, Skyline, Scams and Snakes

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Day 20 (Tues 25^thSept)



My first action in Shanghai was to try and book my ticket to Beijing, not the most positive of starts wanting to book a ticket out of the city, but it’s a national holiday week here next week so needed it sorted. Got to station, once again had forgotten my passport, but on looking at e-ticket machine couldn’t have booked more than 3 days in advance anyways so nothing lost. Have to go back Friday.

Went back to the hostel to drop off my passport and then headed out for a day time walk along the Bund, which is the main promenade/boulevard in Shanghai, from where every picture you’ve ever seen of the skyline will have been taken from. It is an amazing view, one of which I decided I wanted to see more off. After walking along the Bund I got to the ferry terminal, bought my ticket for the equivalent of 20p and hopped on. Not quite as unique as the Star Ferry in Hong Kong, it still had its charm, and an outdoor decking area to take photos. This drops you off on the Pudong side of Shanghai, the financial district.

Walking around for a couple minutes it’s easy to get dizzy looking up at the amazing structures. Shanghai is famous for its big 3 skyscrapers, being the Oriental Pearl Tower which looks like a space rocket, the Jin Mao and the World Financial Centre itself. After walking around the area and reading the various observation desk prices and what you actually get for it I went for the World Financial Centre one. Here you get to go to the 94^th, 97^th and 100^th floors to view the city. Now I’m scared of heights but I had to do this and I figured it’d probably sort me out doing it.

Paid my CNY 150 and headed inside. First there’s a small video presentation showing the building of the tower and the views you are going to see, followed by the incredibly fast lift for floor 95. It takes around 50 seconds (I filmed the height gauge in the lift coming down, sad I know) to get 435 metres up. Go up an escalator and another small lift and you reach the world’s highest observation deck, well it was in 2009 when made, not sure about now. The view is amazing. You can see both directions as well as virtually straight down, there are plenty of see through floor sections. I made sure I walked on them all to cure the heights thing. At no point did the issue of being 474 metres high bother me. I was more than happy to lean against the angled glass facing outwards. I hung around for an hour or so in the lobby on the 94^th floor to wait for the sun to set and to catch the view at night with the lights, also very impressive. Headed back down the lift after a few more pictures and back towards the ferry, after a quick meat on a stick stop off.

Walked back along the Bund, which by this time was mega crowded with tourists, all looking for a great shot of the skyline lit up.



Day 21 (Wed 26^th Sept)



Today I wanted to sort a footy ticket out for Friday night, got that sorted after doing a lap of the Hongkou stadium, home of Shanghai Shenhua. I’m quite keen to see what sort of standard the football is out here and Friday I will find out.

After this I got the metro to Yu Yuan Gardens, one of the only not built up areas of Shanghai. After walking around in circles looking for a green area of gardens, and being misled by countless signs I found a small entrance to the Gardens. Now I couldn’t really call them a garden’s. More a relatively large area that house countless Pagoda’s, out buildings, ponds, trees, random walkways through caves and alcoves. It really is a lovely spot to get away from the massive and modern Shanghai. It wasn’t overcrowded and there was plenty to discover, taking me around 2 hours to wander around all the small little pathways. I followed no path but never found the same place twice. It’s very well kept and preserved and needs to stay as such. Around the gardens are the usual tourist sites of overpriced shops and fast food stalls, yet 1 block away there are local markets selling better food at a fraction of the price. You can always tell when a tourist site is close, American fast food restaurants and westerners. When you’re away from both of these it seems it’s only me and the Chinese. After this I headed over to the Shanghai Museum, a museum housing some 11 permanent galleries spread out over 4 floors as well as 2 exhibition halls. I took in the bottom 3 floors as my back was starting to hurt so went back to the hostel.

The bottom floor was dedicated to Bronze and Sculpture, 2 very impressive galleries with some exhibits going back as far as 10,000 years apparently. I spent a fair amount of time walking around the first floor.

The second floor has a ceramics display which is also pretty impressive consisting of many exhibits ranging throughout China’s history, through all the dynasties of which there have been plenty. Reading up on the history of China is very interesting. Now I wouldn’t say I’m generally that into history but China has opened my eyes up to the past more so than anywhere else has. I bypassed a few galleries about calligraphy and painting as I can’t read Chinese, so there’s no point and I don’t really like paintings, although landscape paintings are quite good. The top floor I will explore in the morning. As I said, got a bit sore and tired so headed back for a lie down.



Day 22 (Thurs 27^th Sept)



Finished of the museum first thing before going over to the Urban Planning Museum next, not the fanciest sounding museum but it is very good. The first couple floors are pretty boring, but the next 2 are impressive. There’s a floor dedicated to a model of the City, which changes a lot. The buildings are all to scale and its spread out over, well an entire floor so it’s quite a sight. Even managed to find my hostel. The next floor shows what Shanghai is going to become and where it’s grown from, looking at it from rail, airport, housing, water, all different sorts of parameters. It’s quite impressive to see that in only a few years this place is going to be even bigger. Then I found some paintings, which don’t inspire me at all and left. It was well worth a couple of hours.

Before all of this though I was tried to be scammed in the nearby park twice. Always done in groups of 2, and generally student aged girls approach westerners asking for them to take a photo of them, normally in front of something non photographic like a wall so you know something’s up straight off. Then they start chatting, in very good English I must add. Where you from? How long you here? Etc. Then the what are you doing now question? Whatever your answer they will say that’s not a good idea and that they’re going to a tea house and you should join them to help practise their English. However should you take this route you will fork out hundreds of pounds at the end. Luckily I knew about this so have the ‘I’m meeting a friend in 5 minutes’ answer sorted, then soon leave you alone when they know they are not getting any money.

Moving into the evening is the interesting part of the day and definitely the most strange thing so far. Me and my French roommate Alfonso went out for tea. Now the night before we’d been discussing eating snake, so we decided as it was his last night to go find some. Did a bit of internet research, found where to go and headed there in the subway. Down a back alley in the middle of a poorly lit street we found Lin Lin’s restaurant. We sat down cautiously and a man came over who spoke English which was handy. We looked through the menu and decided on 2 options in case one was not so good. He asked us if we wanted to see the snake so off course we said yes. The woman popped out the back door and came back with this huge snake, tail flapping about and tongue hissing. Feeling a little bit edgy we soon got her to take the snake out back again. Ordered and waited for it, feeling slightly nervous.

The food arrived, one bowl a bit like a soup/broth with lumps of pasta, vegetables and the main ingredients, snake and bull frogs. The other dish was deep fried snake, looked a bit like KFC.

After psyching myself up I started eating. All this was a bit over the top, I did nearly throw up the first couple bites but that was more the skin than the meat, which depending on how cooked tasted like fish or chicken. The main problem is it’s incredibly bony meaning half your time is spent getting bones out your mouth. The meat itself is ok, and the frogs were pretty good as well. It’s not cheap however and comes out way more than a normal Chinese meal would cost. Washed down with a bottle of Tsingtao and some egg fried rice we finished most of one dish and half the other before it went cold and lost its taste. Hopefully the pictures will do it justice.



Day 23 (Fri 28^th Sept)



Woke up early although not intentional, it’s often quite hard to get a lie in, in a dorm room with others coming and going at their own discretion. Although the Chinese lad above me makes an absolute racket and has actually squealed a couple of times during the night in a dream or nightmare, it’s very odd I can tell you that. He just randomly squeals really loudly but I don’t think it wakes him, just everyone else in the room.

Anyways got my ticket sorted, had to get a sleeper train for 11 hours to Beijing, I had wanted the faster bullet train but it’s a national holiday here from tomorrow so sort of cocked that up a bit. Not the end of the world just an extra 6 hours on a train I could have done without, plus I lose half a day in Beijing which is a shame, as the extra half a day here won’t be utilised. I feel like I’ve pretty much done what I wanted to here so probably just doss about on Sunday before I leave. I don’t see much point in spending money I don’t have to on things I don’t really want to do.

In the evening I took in some Chinese Super League football, Shanghai Shenhua v Henan Jianye I think it was. Possibly the worst standard of football I’ve ever witnessed, the pace is incredibly slow. Even with Drogba and Anelka playing the rest simply aren’t good enough to make the match entertaining. I went to the game with a Chinese lad I thrashed at pool in the bar beforehand. He asked If l like soccer, I said yes and showed him the ticket that I was going and he came along as well. We didn’t have loads of conversation as his English wasn’t good and my Chinese nonexistent but it was still a good laugh

Days 24 and 25 (Sat 29^th and Sun 30^th Sept)



I have joined these 2 days together as well I’ve done pretty much nothing on either of them. The same as I would if I was back home. The weekend has been a sporting one, watching the rugby league and football either in the bar or on the laptop. I’ve been out to walk around Shanghai some more in some places that I haven’t been to yet but apart from that I’ve done very little. I feel like I’ve pretty much done everything here I wanted to do so there seems little point in doing something I don’t want to for the sake of it. With Shanghai being such a new and modern city there isn’t that much to do so it seems to me anyways. There is little by the way of old or historical buildings/gardens etc to visit due to this. From what I’ve seen Shanghai is an amazing place but for a destination for a holiday etc you could have the main points covered in 3 days, not the 5/6 I’ve had here. I have another night train to get tonight which I can’t wait for :P Hopefully won’t be as bad as the previous one, it is at least 4 hours shorter.



Coming Up - Beijing

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Photos

WFC at night
Another bit of attempted creativity

Comments

[anonymous]

admin_2012。明天我们就要出发去越南了。