Day 21: A weighty problem in Shanghai

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I have a weighty problem. About 10kg of weight. No, it's not what I put on during my trip, and while I had a short bout of tummy problems it's not what I lost either. You see, I have a 23kg weight limit on my baggage when I go home. Coming into Shanghai, my bag weighed 22.9kg. And I just bought a heap of heavy stuff. That's going to be a problem at the airport.

My day started with the included buffet breakfast, and it was fantastic! A mixture of East and West, I filled up before I could try everything. They've even got an array of sweet Asian Bread stuff and what looked like cheesecake. I was a very happy boy!

I then went for a bike tour of Shanghai. In researching my trip, I found chinacycletours.com, which had great reviews on TripAdvisor. I had booked a half-day tour and was joined by a couple from Los Angeles. Our tour guide was a Brit, here for two years while his wife teaches English. We had a 3-hour tour of a mere portion of the city, concentrating on the former French Concession (houses built for workers in the 1930s), stylish shopping lane ways, expensive shopping areas, a street specialising in antiques, Yu Garden (a large collection of tourist shops) and various streets in between. It was a great way to se the city and the cycling was not traumatic compared to my earlier cities.

After the ride, I walked back to the Dongtai Antique street and bought an abacus (I remember having one when I was young!), a chess set and some t-shirts. Then somebody else tried to sell me a bigger chess set with nicely carved pieces. I declined, but they offered a great price so I bought it too! That stuff was way heavy, so I headed back to the hotel, passing a Digital Shopping Centre and bought some stuff there, too! There is an amazing number of stores selling genuine Apple products and I notice a lot of people using iPhones here (while I see a lot of travellers in hotels using iPads).

After dropping off my load at the hotel and extracting more cash from an ATM, I returned to Yu Garden where I got some 'chops' (carved seals) with the boys' names. That completes the purchases I wanted to make. Dinner was steamed dumplings from a place with an enormous queue. It was yummy!

I'm now typing this on The Bund, looking at the bright lights one more time. It's starting to rain and the tall Financial Tower (that looks like a large bottle opener) has its top in a cloud.

I've still got another day here in Shanghai before catching my flight tomorrow evening. That means it's now time to pack. Wish me luck!

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