China Day 10

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1st October

Our first day in Shanghai was a wet one. Our guide picked us up in the morning and we went to the water village at Zhou Zhuang. The village was some considerable distance out of Shanghai. Despite the weather, the village was lovely, with a canal running through its centre. There were also some historical buildings to look in, including a house belonging to a wealthy family with its own jetty inside. We were also able to see glimpses of more traditional life, and people carrying on their daily business like de-scaling fish in the middle of the street. Some of the shops sold more traditional items such as combs and children’s shoes which were all hand crafted and very reasonably priced. We also went on a boat ride and I think our vendor thought he was in Venice not China. There was also traditional Chinese musicians playing at the theatre, and we were able to cast a vote for the best children’s decorated lantern. Had the weather been better, we would certainly have spent more time here.

That afternoon, our guide dropped us off in the centre of Shanghai, and we had a look round some of the shops. We went into an electrical store and saw that the Chinese can rival the Japanese for technology and at a reasonable price.

We returned to the hotel and changed and went back into the centre for the National Day celebrations. We took a taxi to the Bund, but the taxi couldn’t get close as it was too busy and parts of it were closed off. Along the Bund, I have never seen some many people in one place at one time, there are approximately nineteen million people live in Shanghai and we suspected all of them had come to the Bund to celebrate and each brought a few friends with them. They were all in a party mood with flags and a selection of inflatables including swords, hammers and crowns. We tried to find somewhere for something to eat, and the first restaurant we tried was Mongolian. It looked quite nice, but we couldn’t understand the menu and the food that everyone was eating looked a little more adventurous than we could manage. Eventually we went to eat in a restaurant within a department store. The food was okay, but very expensive and with hindsight, perhaps we should have looked elsewhere.

Along the Bund, we bought Dad the most appropriate present we could - an inflatable sword in honour of his recent escapade. We also bought the nephews and nieces at home some skates that fix to the back of trainers that lit up at night. The lads selling them were quite adept on them, but we figured that they probably needed quite a lot of practise.

On returning to the hotel, we found a bar that was advertising Fosters, so we went in to try it out and in true Peter Kay fashion “it tasted just the same”.

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