Shanghai - Day 97-99

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We took the overnight train to Shanghai and were fortunate to have the cabin all to ourselves. The soft sleeper trains in China are fantastic! Very new, very clean, and super comfortable. We made our way to the new Pudong side of the river to check into our hotel (thanks for hooking it up Noonan). It was great having a few extra days to check out Shanghai before leaving China. We spent our first day walking through Xintiandi and the French Concession. We had an afternoon drink at a great bar called Face on the Rui Jin guesthouse grounds. That night we spent our time at the "Million Brands Mall", it's as big as it sounds, and saw the Pirates of the Caribbean III, in English thank god. They like their movies loud in Shanghai, we had to stuff tissue in our ears, but at least we could understand what they were saying...

The next day we walked through the old quarter and witnessed some of the building demolition and clearance that is taking place. A lot of the old homes and business are being torn down for new development. There is quite a contrast between the huge high rise commercial and residential buldings that now neighbor these old homes and shops.

On our last night we went out to some great night skyline vew spots to say goodbye to China. We kept to the Pudong side of the river and had some very nice views of The Bund despite a little rain. China has by far been the biggest surprise of our trip and far different from anything we had expected. The grand finale was a trip on the Maglev Train at 430kph (267mph) to the Pudong Airport. It was a very fast eight minutes and we were only at full speed for a short time but it was totally impressive. Off to Japan!!

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