Shanghai - what a place.

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We arrived into Shanghai on an overnight hard sleeper from Xi'an. This was our first experience of a sleeper train so we were not sure what to expect. There are 6 bunks in a tiny cabin but they provide a pillow and blanket and the beds are not strictly what you would call hard but they're not the most comfortable thing either. We got on our bunks hoping we would be able to sleep, then realised the Chinese people we were sharing our cabin with liked to ignore the no smoking signs and were soon puffing away and choking us to death. We did our best to get some sleep and after a few hours lying awake listening to the others below snoring, we put in our ear plugs and went to sleep.

We woke up at 7am confused thinking we were at our stop, so jumped out of our beds and grabbed our bags as quickly as possible. We stood there waiting but as it turned out the train was behind schedule and we waited another hour and 20 minutes before getting into Shanghai. Once there we got easily to our hostel which looked really nice, even the shared facilities we had. We got a few hours rest before going out to explore.

Shanghai - such a big place, where to start we thought. We walked along to peoples square and had a walk through the park, which was quite pretty. We planned to walk to the bund but couldn't work out which direction it was in so came out of the park to the metro station. As we went toward the metro two Chinese girls came up to us and asked us to take a photo of them. Pete ogliged and they started chatting to us asking us where we were from etc etc. Pete was chatting away to them but I smelled a rat.... It wasn't long before they asked us if we wanted to go with them to a tea house - BINGO the scam I had read about. Luckily as I was forewarned we avoided the scam and got the metro.

The bund wasn't what I was expecting. It's a harbour overlooking the river and the financial district on the other side, I thought it was a shopping district? Anyway we walked up to the viewing part and looked across the river, unfortunately it had started raining really heavily by this point and the view wasn't great. We were soaked through but didn't care as the city already just seemed like a buzzing and vibrant place. We grabbed some food and then headed up Nanjing east road and some back streets back towards our hostel.

In the late afternoon we headed to our hostel bar for a few drinks before going out for dinner. Here we got chatting to a Canadian man about where he had been so far. I mentioned that we had been approached by a tea scammer earlier and warned him. As we were chatting, two girls sitting opposite us burst out laughing and said they had today fallen for the scam and ended up paying approx $50 for a tiny pot of tea... Lol we couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them but we did laugh about it for quite some time.

In the evening we thought we'd head to the French Concession for some dinner. The rain was still falling but as we only had 2 days here we just walked out in it. After walking for about 45 minutes we were drenched and couldn't really find a restaurant. The area was a shoppers paradise with Gucci, Louis Vitton, every designer shop you could think of and all I could think was how annoying it was that at this moment I was travelling with an accountant (therefore on a strict budget!! Lol) and couldn't go in and buy myself some louboutins.

After snapping out of my Louboutin daydream and realising I really wasn't able to shop and the fact we were so drenched, we saw a sign for a bar at the top of a building called Wesley's Michael Jackson Bar so we went in. It was actually a Japanese restaurant playing Michael Jackson music and ladies dressed as MJ.... I had a traditional hotpot where they bring you all the raw ingredients and you cook it yourself. I quite liked this but when I ordered it I didn't realise it would be so big so as with every meal we have had ordered far too much (you'd think we would have learnt by now). We had a couple of drinks as the prices were reasonable for a city and prayed that tomorrow wouldn't be raining.

The next day was one of my favourite days in China despite it still being grey and raining. We got the metro straight over to the financial area to go to the top of the World Financial centre and see the city from 492m. We took the lift to the top (floor 100) but when we got there we couldn't see anything below as we were surrounded by cloud. We waited a while but the clouds didn't seem to clear so we went down to floor 97. We had a little better view but still couldn't see much due to the rain so went to floor 94. Once here we decided to sit and have a glass of red in sky94 bar. It was great sitting 418m up having a glass of vino and watching the clouds gradually clear and the view of the city and river below appear. It looked amazing from so high up.

After an hour or so we came back down and walked all the way back to our hostel which was a good 40 minutes but luckily the rain had slowed by now. We stopped off in the food street and grabbed a little lunch. Pete's was good but unfortunately mine tasted of lemongrass and nothing else but one of the things I love about China is trying different foods everyday Even if sometimes it doesn't always work out.

In the evening we decided that being as we were in Shanghai we would go out drinking rather than for dinner - afterall sometimes you just need to indulge, even when you are travelling and shouldn't really be spending £10 per drink. We walked down to the bund again stopping in a few bars on the way. The rain had completely stopped and the night sky was clear and the city all lit up, it looked so pretty. Loads of people were out on the streets walking around and the city was buzzing, although the bars were pretty empty. Once at the bund we could see across the river where the financial district was shining neon and it looked so lovely we thought we needed to see it from above again.

We walked across the bridge towards the Hyatt hotel and went up into their bar. The city looked even better up here so I thought the only thing to do was sit and have a Cosmo and enjoy the fantastic view and extravagance -why not!! This really made our trip to Shanghai.

Overall Shanghai is a vibrant city, not really like anywhere else in China. It's a lot more western where you will see more western people and hear a bit more English being spoken, however it still has lots of Chinese influence, e.g the food and the neon signs. Although overall we were looking to experience the more rural side of China we are really glad we made a special trip across to the east side of China, even if it was only for two days.

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