Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shanghai

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Having got the train this far, for the journey to Shanghai we opted for a short hop on a plane. For the same price, a one hour flight just seemed a better option than a 12 hour over-night train. With the whole process of booking and checking-in being painless and the flight being on a brand new Airbus, domestic flights within China are definitely a fast and convenient way to get around for those who don't fancy the trains...

After touching down in Shanghai Pudong International Airport, we were picked up by Rich's Dad (John) who has lived and taught in Shanghai for the last two years. From the airport we made our way straight to his flat, which would act as our base for next 10 days or so.

After a month and a half of hosteling it was great to have a safe place to drop our bags and somewhere to chill out in. A very nice flat on the ninth floor of an apartment complex close to Shanghai South Railway Station fitted the bill perfectly. And with a comfy sofa, an extensive DVD collection and cable TV the "chilling out" element was well catered for...

However, let's get the bad new out of the way first. Pretty much as soon as we sat down we realised that we were light a couple of our belongings. The list includes: a pair of earrings given to Claire by our Mongolian guide left in the bathroom back in Xi'an; a terracotta warrior fridge magnet (our only purchased souvenir to date) left in the bedroom in Xi'an; the pair of our scissors from our medical kit that was confiscated going through airport security in Xi'an; and our iPhone 4 that was lost somewhere between getting on the flight and arriving at Rich's Dad's flat. Add to that the fact that we received the sad news from back home that our pet gerbil passed away and you might agree that it wasn't the best start to the day.

At least Nugget is now with his brother Milkshake again - reunited in matching Blackberry boxes underneath the Easter Island head statue in the garden...

After coming to terms with our multitude of losses, putting a block on our sim and lodging a report with the local police to satisfy our travel insurance company, we set about enjoying Shanghai. A city to rival Beijing for size, Shanghai had an altogether different feel to it. With historic areas such as the French concession, Shanghai has a more western appearance. The countless number of people on the streets of Beijing pedalling cheap toys, umbrellas, ice creams and bottles of water do not exist in Shanghai. Nor do the equally numerous and highly commendable people who busy themselves collecting and recycling the empty bottles. Instead Shanghai is a lot tidier, with neat streets, smart shopping malls and plenty of Starbucks. When we arrived into Beijing it had definitely felt more wealthy. When we walked around Shanghai, it showed. A regional centre of finance to at least rival Hong Kong and Singapore, you do get the sense that there are a lot of people in Shanghai with a lot of money...

Undoubtedly a contributing factor to the feel of place is the fact that Shanghai is a much more modern city with a much younger history. Whereas you can talk about Beijing's past in terms of thousands of years, Shanghai's history only really stretches back into the few centuries. That means that the imperial treasures of Beijing are replaced by more modern day feats of engineering - lots of impressive skyscrapers that are lit up by bright neon lights at night.

In terms of sightseeing, this meant that there were less historic sites to visit. Instead, the attractions were the skyline; shops and markets to browse around; restaurants to dine in; and of course, that DVD collection to get through!

During our first four days in Shanghai we went to the shops and restaurants around Tai Kang Road twice - eating in a Vietnamese and Indian restaurant respectively on our visits. A small cluster of eight or so lanes, this small area has been transformed into a market for tourists. There were some great shops showing off photos of Shanghai and the surrounding region, all of which had been well photo-shopped. As heavily stereotypical as some of them may have been (a black and white of an old Chinese man grinning a toothless smile whilst smoking an opium pipe; or any number of photographs turned to black and white with only the red of Chinese lanterns or rickshaws still accentuated), they were still done artfully enough to capture our gaze for a long while. All in, after wondering around, there was enough nice things on sale in the market for us to conclude that we would have to come back another time when we weren't on a restricted budget and when we wouldn't have to carry for the next three months anything that we bought...

Aside from that, the first four days in Shanghai were a bit of a wash out. We're not sure if it made the news back in the UK, but apparently this part of China is suffering its worst floods for the past 50 years. Sadly it wasn't even the big, crash bang downpour sort of rain that makes it an event in itself, but rather it was the annoyingly persistent version of rain that puts you off going outdoors for any extended periods of time.

Thus, with the weather set in, the list of attractions was narrowed to dining at restaurants and watching DVDs, which suited us just fine. However, although Due Date provided a couple of giggles and RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous) was entertaining enough, no single movie that we watched deserves to be singled out for commendation. Quite to the contrary, avoid watching the Adjustment Bureau at all costs.

On the other hand, we did eat very well. Pork dumplings with soy and chilli dipping sauce, fried rice and noodles from street vendors for £1 each; a couple of local Chinese restaurants; and home-cooked meals by Rich and his Dad back at the flat.

On one evening, for a treat Rich's Dad took us out to a more up market Chinese restaurant called Lost Heaven. The restaurant was huge and was one of those places where as much attention is given to getting the decor right as is to the design of the menu. After a tasty meal, with stir-fried chilli mince pork wrapped in lettuce leaves as the pick of the dishes, we strolled down onto The Bund.

The Bund is Shanghai's famous harbour promenade. The old colonial buildings of the French Concession that line the west bank of the Huangpu River are faced on the opposite bank by the soaring skyscrapers of the Pudong financial district. The two faces of Shanghai, old and new, strike and impressive contrast.

Aided by the weather, we almost had it to ourselves as we walked the one kilometre length along the river. Sadly, the same weather meant that the views from the terrace bar on the 30th floor of the Hyatt were not at their best, so we opted instead for a couple of drinks, a round or two of pool and some darts in a local Australian bar.

Following on from our four days, we set off for a couple of nights to nearby Hangzhou. Kitted out with only a day bag, it was nice not to have to lug around our big rucksacks for a change - even if it was only a two hour train ride from Shanghai.

In China, the name Hangzhou is comparable to those of Florence or Vienna in Europe and fulfils the Chinese ideal of a city amidst glorious scenery. Visited by Marco Polo on his travels east, he described it as "by far the most glorious city in the world".

The main attraction of Hangzhou is West Lake, whose "banks are lined by weeping willows, promenades, teahouses, pagodas, boats and skiffs (not sure what these are, but not the plastic pint glass variety), islands, lotus plants and the whole scene is encircled by rolling hills". So, all in all, not a bad place to visit...

Reading the Baedeker China guidebook, from which the above quotes are lifted, we thought that Hangzhou would be a small and quiet place. However, as with many things in China, scale is distorted and it is in fact a city of six million inhabitants. Distorting the scale the other way, West Lake is only one and a half metres deep and so is actually more of a deep puddle if truth be told.

Saying that, we were fortunately graced by a day of fine weather and so hired a pair of bicycles to set about exploring the lake. Only about ten kilometres in circumference, it was a leisurely three hour cycle along generally flat paths. The only gradients were those offered by the occasional hump-back bridges which were dotted along the causeways. To get over these required the build up of a bit momentum, but allowed plenty of free-wheeling down the other side. It was a nice break from walking and a enjoyable way to soak up what was some really beautiful scenery. We even managed to get a bit sun burnt. It was great!

After Hangzhou, we returned to Shanghai for another three days of eating, shopping and DVD watching. This included sitting in the Coffee Bean in Xintiandi, which is a pedestrianised area that is home to some old buildings which have been gutted with only their original facades maintained. Now an upmarket restaurant and shopping district, this was also the place that saw Mao Zedong and 12 others hold a conspiratorial meeting on 23 July 1921, which led to the formation of the Communist Party of China.

We also popped down to the Shanghai Museum next to People's Square and after 30 minutes (and that's being generous) decided to leave. That's not a reflection on the museum itself, but rather that we have come to realise on these travels that when it comes to museums we prefer to have a degree of interactivity or those set in interesting buildings. That's why the Science and Natural History Museums will always come out on top over the V&A, and also why the Hermitage in St. Petersburg was such a good day out.

Our other notable stop was at the Apple store. Having lost our iPhone we were of course short an Apple product and Rich, stating that it was close enough to his birthday to treat himself, decided he deserved an iPad 2. Enquiring on one day whether there were any in stock, we were told that you needed to pre-order them, but that if you came at 2pm then any that had been pre-ordered for that date but which had not been collected then went on general sale. Returning the next day at 2pm, Rich asked a store attendant and she said that they were out of stock and had to be pre-ordered. After repeating what we had been told the day before she went off to enquire with her manager and returned, smiling and told us to join the back of a two person queue at the checkout. Jackpot! They even had a choice of colours...

It was at this point that the security guard pointed out to her that the queue that the manager had obviously intended her to instruct us to join was in fact the 40-odd person long queue outside of the shop. Whoops! In a masterful act of customer service, she then ushered us to one side and out of view of the now 50-odd person long queue and, in a very hush-hush manner, completed the transaction. Rich can be very jammy sometimes...

And so it came to be that a day later we found ourselves boarding a long distance bus, armed with a shining new black iPad 2 (forget the choice of colours, it was always going to be black) for a six hour journey to our next side trip from Shanghai, the Yellow Mountain of Huangshan. And having lost the 450/450 stars collected on the first three worlds of Angry Birds, there was plenty of catching up to do on the journey...

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