World Expo

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We left Xi'an on a train that had a bed this time after the last rather uncomfortable train ride. Shanghai is currently holding the World Expo and because of that the price of rooms are doubled. It was horrible we were having to pay $15 a night, and while I say that jokingly you do get use to paying low costs and when all of a sudden you have to pay more it is upsetting. The first place we went to was a hostel called Bee Home Hostel, it was located near the financial district and was rather simple. It took some time to find since it was not located on any map we had and the taxi drivers obviously did not understand our English address for the location. The place was definitely for older people and we got out of there in a couple days and made our way to the famous Bund in Shanghai at a Hostel called Captain's Hostel. If you're saying to yourself, The Bund, what are you talking about? I didn't know either, but I guess it's an area that has European style buildings in Shanghai along the river. You can pretend you knew that the entire time, otherwise people look at you like you aren't cultured and that you clearly must have slept through your 8th grade world geography class. The Captain's hostel though was a horrible place but even with that said the location is ideal and that is probably the only reason it stays in business. The staff was rude, unhelpful, and did everything they could to not work not to mention that they claimed to have all these features to the hostel and none worked. The bar charged $7 a beer and they made you order something if you wanted to sit and watch TV, and since the World Cup was going on and I was traveling with two British guys I paid for a beer.

Besides the worst hostel I've stayed at, my stay at Shanghai was a good experience. We went to the World Expo and had been warned about the Chinese and their inability to wait in line. They push and walk past you any time you're in line. It was nothing that I needed to be warned about, it was obvious from day one. We decided to come up with a strategy and skip every line we came to. What we said changed depending on the country we went to, but basically we went up to the front talked with the people and walked right into the exhibit while the others waited hours in line. We were able to see 14 exhibits on a night pass while others we spoke with were only able to see 3-7. If you're thinking to yourself that I should feel bad about skipping the lines, I don't. Most those exhibits sucked and I would have demanded my money back had I had to wait in those lines. Besides I would have had to be next to people spitting, babies crapping through their open bottom pants (on the sidewalk/subway/ect), and people trying to take pictures of me.

This is where I left my two traveling companions. They had a train trip back to Beijing that was a week later since it was so busy with the Expo travelers. I got a train ticket to Qingdao the next day after buying it, and I thought it was the express train that would last 10 hours since that is what Lonely Planet had led me to believe. It was a seat and the train had no bed so this would fit that it was not an overnight train. Turns out that it was an 18 hour train ride and I had a seat the entire time, makes much more sense why it only cost $25 needless to say I didn't get any sleep.

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Photos

Shanghai
Australian exhibit

Shanghai
UK exhibit

Shanghai
Cuban concert