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Published: July 27th 2008
So we were pumped for Shanghai... we heard it was an amazing city with great night life. Our first overnight train from Beijing was a success. I think mostly due to the fact that we had to pay for a soft sleeper cause that's all that was left so we were living in luxury. We were staying a promising little hostel called UCool that claimed to have a travel desk, laundry, bar and restaurant with a free welcome beer! It also looked like "It's a small world” from the outside. We were excited!
Well... we arrived to find the hostel down a crummy little alley with homeless people (how are people homeless in a communist system?) and out of the four story building only had one floor of rooms. No bar... no restaurant... no travel desk... and definitely no free welcome drink! We decided we would make the most of it however and live it up in Shanghai.
Shanghai (we were told) was going to have a great nightlife and with no real historic sights to see we thought it would be the perfect city for a couple big nights out. That proved us wrong when we walked around-
in the rain- looking for some sort of nightlife the first night we were there. We did find a brewery with Y48 beers, a huge increase from the Y3 we were finding in Beijing. So we had a beer and called it a night.
The next night we did end up a jazz bar, Chris met some ladies from Germany, but only after we encouraged him to buy them a drink and I went up and started talking to them. We ended up having a great night dancing to the music and making new friends, but it cost us way over one day’s budget each. It was such a fun night dancing and meeting new friends. The next day was spent eating Chinese ramen noodles and conserving money!
Now on to Shanghai...
Minus the fact that the whole city smelled like piss we did find time to enjoy it. Our hostel was located close to the bund- the main area on the river where you find all the view of the neon lights and old building. The contrast between the two sides of the river is amazing. One side is all the skyscrapers with neon lights and
the other is the older buildings that have been there for years! We explored that whole area as well as East Nanjing Road the major shopping streets. The majority of time there you spend shooing away street salesmen. "Lady! Bag, Rolex, t-shirt!" Then they roll out their little book of everything they are selling down the way. You say no and it just encourages them to follow you further down the street before you have to raise your voice to get them to leave. We found after a while that just ignoring them is best. Or you can play really funny games with them. Since they only words in English they know are "Hey" "Lady" "Bag" "Rolex" "Just Looky" and "T-shirt"- we found it quite fun to mess with them and start asking them random questions they would just say yes to!
We did manage to walk about 10 miles one day to the French concession area of Shanghai. I pictured it as a cute and quaint area with sidewalk cafes much like Paris. Except when we got there we found the same annoying vendors, no street cafes and the same stores we had at the Bund.
The
next day we set out for Old Town Shanghai. The city center before all the development began. We found this area much more charming. There were old alleys with cool buildings. Lots of fun shops and a lot more character. We decided to pay Y30 to get into the Yu Yuan Gardens, old traditional Chinese gardens from the 1500's. They were really pretty, but a lot of the gardens were under construction so the nice rock structures and ponds were covered in green tarps.
I guess we just had to high of expectations for Shanghai considering all the great things we heard about it. Maybe it would be different if we had a higher budget and stayed at a nicer place. So much depends on where you stay and the people you meet.
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The joy of our first overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai
nins
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OMG back off scavengers
back off! 1 - the crazy street sales peeps 2- the hoochies after your man! haha greatttttt pics, looks way better than it sounds =)