Saturday 25th July 2009 Shanghai

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Saturday 25th July 2009 Shanghai
Didn’t sleep too late, we were up again at about 11, and weren’t that hungry for breakfast since it had only been about 5 hours since our McDonalds! We made our plan for the day and headed down to a lovely little area called Xin tian si for a look around. It’s the new super cool and fashionable, rejuvenated area of the city full of over priced shops, bars and restaurants but is actually very pleasant. It pedestrianised so the cafes spill out onto the footpaths in a pretty but overpriced tourist kind of way. We wandered through looking for something to eat that wouldn’t blow a week’s budget on a sandwich served on money flavoured focacia bread or something. There was a nice little German restaurant which was ok value, well compared to the rest and had a sandwich and spent a pleasant hour sitting outside watching all the tourists walking up and down leaving their money behind in the boutiques and shops. Afterwards I finally bought a pair of shoes in a cool little shoe shop on the main street, I will be sorry to see the trusty Pumas go, they have traveled far with me but I think they may have been put in quarantine if I brought them to Australia, they have never been the same since the flower trek in Malaysia.

We walked back to the hotel through Remnin Park and got all our bags and things kind of packed for our next early morning departure. For once we were able to easily book ahead for something in China on the Internet so we headed to the Circus stop on the Subway and went to see the magnificent Shanghai Acrobats. Now this was the most amazing show I have ever attended, some of the things they had their bodies doing and the heights they were leaping were breathtaking. They had contortionist on top of contortionist on top of 3 more until there were 4 or five all balancing on the back of some poor guy on the bottom, some amazing big guy who was doing spectacular things with giant porcelain flower pots, tossing them in the air and catching and balancing them on his head like a footballer. A couple flying around magnificently on drapes form the ceiling, and finally they finished off with one of those balls of death cages for motorcycles. It looked impressive and dangerous enough with only 2 in it but they kept on jamming a few more in, (just like the Chinese with their cities I suppose!) until they amazingly had I think it was 8 in the cage at the same time. I would recommend it to anyone who ever goes to Shanghai, a great way to spend an evening.

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