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Published: August 18th 2008
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Shanghai
The Bund on a smoggy morning Somehow with everything that has happened this year (long story) it had completely slipped my mind to blog about my China trip, so quite belatedly, here it is.
I didn't have enough points to fly business class in both directions this time, so had to resign myself to sitting with the plebs again on the outbound flight ;-) Only a short flight to Shanghai of course, so not too much of a hardship. Because I was right at the front of the plane I managed to be one of the first to the Immigration counters- what a difference that makes. I was through in about 2 minutes, while the queue behind me got longer and longer. Something I hadn't seen before was the little customer service-rating machines on the counters- when the officer had finished stamping your passport 3 little faces lit up on the screen- one happy, one kind of non-committal looking, and one which looked peeved. If you were so inclined you could then push the button to record how you felt about the customer service you had received. The first sign of a China that was gearing up for the Olympics, I thought.
As it was
Shanghai
Oriental Pearl Tower through the haze late I took a taxi into central Shanghai- quite a long trip, although not as far as Narita (does any major city have an international airport that is as far away as Narita?) Having booked a room for my friends and I in Hong Kong last year through an internet site I had lots of points to use which meant I was able to stay in a 4-star hotel but only pay about $20, which is always good. The hotel was called the Metropole, although the name was totally different in Chinese, which caused confusion when I first asked a taxi driver to take me there- I don't know the pronunciation of the Chinese characters, but they mean "new castle" and the pronunciation when the taxi drivers were discussing where it might be was nothing like Metropole.
The smog in Shanghai was so thick that even at night the haze was really obvious. It was the same when I woke up the next morning and set out to look at the Bund, which is the old name for the waterfront street lined with mostly colonial buildings. The tops of skyscrapers just 500m away or so were hardly visible, and
the iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which I had wanted to see for ages, just about disappeared into the grey brown murk on the other side of the Huangpu River.
After that quick excursion I rushed back to the hotel and got in a taxi to Hong Qiao, the domestic airport. After sitting on the tarmac for ages we finally took off and not long after landed in Beijing. Beijing airport is also pretty shiny and new looking, and it was really easy to find the airport bus I wanted. The trip into Beijing was really smooth- more signs of Olympic preparation. Actually practically any sign or billboard I saw in China had an Olympic theme- it was already obvious how big a deal it is there. I bought myself a bottle of green tea to drink on the bus and was surprised to find it was sweet! The packaging was very similar to Japanese bottled green tea and the characters are almost the same (it is such a bonus to be able to read Chinese characters sometimes, I can't tell you) but what I hadn't noticed was that the tea contained honey- lots of it apparently. I definitely
prefer the non-sweetened version.
At Beijing airport even before getting off the plane I had noticed all this white fluffy stuff floating through the air- surely the pollution isn't so thick here that it's partly solidified! I thought, but it turned out to be the seeds of some kind of tree, which blow all over the place in April every year. On the floor of the arrivals hall it was piling up in ankle-deep drifts, but the security guards and customs officers weren't paying any attention to it. The whole trip into central Beijing as well dust bunnies were floating past the window- seems like it comes from the willow trees that have been planted alongside a lot of major roads in that part of China.
The bus I had taken dropped me off not far from my hotel, near the old city walls. I could see the hotel where I was joining the tour from the window of the bus, so side-stepped the hotel touts at the bus stop and started heading that way, only to have one of the grab me by the shoulders and ask me if I wanted a hotel- not a brilliant way
The Bund
Chinese tour group in matching hats to get business! I shook him off and walked the three minutes to the hotel, which was on a very busy intersection. One major difference between Japanese and Chinese cities (actually there are more differences than similarities!) is that Beijing is crisscrossed by very very wide boulevards. Kyoto is also on a grid pattern, but the streets aren't nearly that wide. So it took a while just to cross the road, but once I had negotiated that the hotel was right on the corner.
There was a meeting of all the tour members and the leader in a couple of hours, so I just hung out in the hotel and read my guidebook until then. I was expecting my roommate to arrive, but it turned out that she was supposed to be one of the three British girls who were travelling together and they decided they all wanted to stay in the same room, even if one of them had to sleep on the floor- no complaints from me there! I got a room to myself for the whole trip.
After the meeting we went across the road to a Peking duck (should say Beijing duck I suppose)
Shanghai
Flying kites next to the river- actually they are selling them to tourists restaurant. Now I am theoretically a vegetarian, but I firmly believe in not letting that cause a problem for others, and also in not missing out on unique experiences, and eating is definitely an important part of travelling. I had never eaten Peking duck before, so I decided to try some. I hadn't realised that you actually eat it rolled up in tiny little crepe-like things with a green vegetable and sauce. I only had a couple, but it was really good. There was also soup and various kinds of vegies so I didn't starve.
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