Stifling Shanghai

Next stop Shanghai…we flew into Pudong Airport (felt really guilty about wasting all the money on the flight and we made a pact that we would take trains from now on if they were cheaper) with the purpose of getting the Maglev train into the city. It’s a train with no engine. It runs on magnetic force and reaches 300k and hour which is pretty fast. It was a good experience but after being on an airplane I think it took a little bit of the fun out o fit because we had probably taxi’d faster than that on the runway!!

Checked into the hostel and went in search of food - found a dodgy restaurant where loads of Chinese were eating so we said we would pop in. We ordered chicken and beef. The chicken dish came out and we nearly died- there was an actual CHICKENS CLAW in the dish- I mean the whole foot, claw everything. It was not good…

Shanghai is really an ok city…..there isn’t a hell of a lot to see and do and it was hitting over 40 degrees when we were there so we stayed in most of the day and headed out after 4. Once you have sent the amazing skyline of the Bund I don’t think there is a hell of a lot more to do. The idea I had in my head and the reality didn’t match up but the city is one of the most developed that we had been in in China. I decided to get me hair chopped because I had more hair than body by now- 4 euros for a haircut and a massage. The hairdresser got a bit scissor happy though and I left with half my hair left on my head- oh well!! Gar bought a few DVD’s for 50cent each -it was pretty cool to enjoy the perks of traveling in China.

Our last day in Shangahi was pretty typical of China….we wanted to get tickets to Huangshan a sacred mountain that we had seen a programme on and we really wanted to go and see it. Checked at the hostel if they could book the tickets but for one reason or another they couldn’t- they sent us on a wild goose chase to find a ticket office. When we eventually got there the girl behind the counter couldn’t speak English but a nice Chinese girl who was behind us in the queue helped us and the only train we could get was for 10pm the next night.

No one could tell us about the option of a bus so we deiced we would see if we could get the bus instead and travel in the daytime instead of the night. Off with us to look for the tourist information- they were nothing short of crap- we had wasted an hour trying to find them for them to tell us that we could book train tickets in the station-eh you don’t say!!! The lonely planet recommended a tourist agency that we spent another hour trying to find in searing heat- when we got there the dog behind the counter barked that they only sold airline tickets and nothing else. We had now been trying to sort out tickets for over3 hours. We tried a couple of high class hotels but they couldn’t help either- it was now 4 o’clock and we had left the hostel at 12 to look for tickets. Why was it so difficult to get information?? We were pretty pissed off so headed back to the hostel after a wasted day. I looked up online that we could get a bus for half the time the next day so we decided to take a chance on that and see how it worked out. We came up with the phrase - “its hard to keep the cool when its 40 degrees out - in china.”

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