Shanghai, The End of China.

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Our two main expeditions of our second trip to Shanghai were to the Old Town and to the gallery district of Moshan Rd. This does not include an unsuccessful trip to Pudong to try and find some sites in which nothing of interest really happened. The trip to the Old Town was mainly to do the last minute gift shopping for friends and family, and it was a great place to do it (which was lucky considering how unlucky we'd been with shopping in the French Concession and The Bund). While the architecture was good and 'old-fashioned', its hard to take the place seriously as an 'old town' when there are starbucks and the like everywhere. We ate lunch at some Chinese franchise that specialised in dumplings, where the prices were impressively low, but sadly there was nothing without meat. It was at the Old Town where I bought one of the most ludricrous things I have ever bought in my life- a motorcycle helmet in green with a red communist star on it. Who would have guessed that such a thing existed...

Moshan Rd art district had galleries. Better, I would even say, than the 798 district in Beijing. We went there on our last full day on the mainland, and enjoyed various artworks. One gallery had a particularly good selection of art in the basement which we took a long time enjoying, and which I suspect had artists I will be coming across when I study Asian contemporary art this semester at uni. It was in this same gallery that we got invited to an exhibition opening by the artist who happened to be checking the arrangements just as we were leaving. So we went back that night, but were incredibly intimidated by the pretentious art folk that all seemed to know each other, so mainly just browsed all the art again (which I must admit I appreciated even more the second time, the artist, Kevin Berlin, has astounding skill in rendering fabrics in painting, and after reading through the catalogue after our first visit, I had at least a vague idea of the concept behind the series). But we left early, ready to wake up at 4am the next morning.

We got a shuttle bus provided by our hostel to the airport, caught the plane to Shenzhen, then luckily found a bus service that takes you direct from Shenzhen airport to Hong Kong airport directly, which saved a lot of effort on our part, which was good considering my bag had gained considerable weight after the shopping in Old Town, to the point where one of the straps broke as we were getting our luggage checked at the border (my bag, having broken many times already on this trip, had the nickname of Frankenstein, and my evil blister causing shoes were Hitler). From Hong Kong airport it was an easy bus to Discovery Bay to spend two days with my aunt and uncle before flying home. In Hong Kong we mainly viewed DVDs (purchased in Xi'An) and went to a stunning rooftop bar and Lan Kwoi Fang, the bar district in Hong Kong, where we were very kindly treated by my aunt and uncle to a few drinks and a foot massage. It was certainly a luxurious way to wind down and enjoy the end of our trip.

I felt a bit sick on the day of our flight, perhaps because I hadnt gotten much sleep the night before. The flight was alright, and I got to watch some great movies on the plane, and the only time I felt really sick was just before dinner, and luckily it was fixed by the arrival of my meal, and some ginger ale. Coming home was easier this time around, perhaps because it was 2 months, but I suspect much more due to the fact that it wasn't my first time travelling, and this time around I had a lot more to come back to, rather than the prospect of changing my whole life around. There is so much more of China I would have loved to do, but I can always blame a lot of that on lack of time, funds, and particularly the fact that it was winter. China wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience, and time will tell if I will go back.

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Photos

I Heart China
A poster that was near Cao Yang station, right near our hostel.