Day 22: Goodbye China!

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Today is the final day of my 3-week trip to China. I occasionally see something that reminds me of an event earlier in the trip (such as discovering my bike pedals in my bag) and I find it amazing that I'm still on the same trip. And I have 1200 photos to prove it!

After packing my bags (more about that later) and checking out of the hotel, I thought I'd head to Pudong on the eastern side of the river. That's where all the large office buildings congregate, including the big bottle opener.

As I was walking to the subway, someone asked me to take a picture for them. It was a local Shanghai guy with his cousin visiting from Beijing. We had a chat about various things and the cousin admitted that Shanghai is nicer than Beijing "because Beijing is too dry". They both disagreed that the constant cloud cover was due to pollution, claiming it was sunny just a couple of days ago!

Rather than starting my trip downtown, I decided to start at a distance and head into town. First stop was the Maglev Museum. Shanghai has the world's only commercially operated high-speed magnetic levitation line, running to Pudong airport. I planned to take it later today but I wanted to visit the adjoining museum. The museum showed the history of magnetic levitation and the principles behind it. Apparently vehicles (car, trains) exert less downward force when they travel at high speed. Magnetic levitation takes this to the extreme by removing all friction, travelling "in the air" due to magnets that "pull" the train up by a few centimetres. However, it is very expensive and there are no current plans for any other maglev lines anywhere in the world.

Next I visited the new Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel. The pictures on the web made it look quite interesting (google it!) but the architecture turned out to be more like standing inside the intestines of an animal. Also, the adjoining shopping centre was incomplete, so it was an underwhelming experience.

The next part of my journey was to have taken me through Century Park, a large park and lake area. However, a hippie music festival was on today, so I had to settle with walking around the park. I then discovered that the park requires an entry fee (or an annual pass) so even the poor citizens can't take advantage of the open space for free!

I kept trudging up the main axis of Pudong, passing the Science and Technology museum (impressive looking building) and heading back into civilisation after two hours of walking. I bought some food in a store and noticed the person in front of me paying by finger-scanning terminal. After scanning their finger, they entered an 11-digit code, which I assume is their cell phone number (easy to remember). The number identifies them and the finger scan acts like a signature - no need to even carry a card!

I chose not to ascend the 100 floors of the Shanghai World Financial Centre (the bottle opener) due to the poor weather, instead taking the subway to Nanjing Road, claimed to be one of the world's busiest shopping streets. Well, it certainly was busy! Not just with pedestrians, but also with voices appearing behind me offering imitation watches or evening entertainment. The whole place felt filthy to me - certainly not a place I'd like to shop. Oh, I did find a business in an old train carriage selling remote-control helicopters, but I couldn't imagine how to fit one in my bags!

Something else that caught my eye was a group of boys warming up for a demonstration of yoyo skills. The thing is, these yoyos easily detached from their strings, enabling wild tricks like tossing yoyos and catching them on the string. They looked like yoyos but acted like diabolos. I haven't been able to find them on the web.

I then visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, best known because it has a huge scale model of the city. However, it doesn't seem to have been updated since the World Expo in 2010. There were, however, some very interesting pictures of Shanghai "then and now", showing how the city has grown and how the government improved the Bund waterfront to be more attractive to pedestrians. It is actually a sea wall designed to prevent flooding, but has been designed to encourage visitors to walk up for the view. A busy road was even moved underground to free up space.

By this time, I had to head back to my hotel to grab my bags and go to the airport. Time was running a bit short and I didn't want to be late to the airport. My choice was to walk (maybe 20-30 minutes) or take the subway (two stops, but a change of line required). Just then, a bus pulled up near me that was headed in the right general direction, so I hopped on. It turned out that the bus was an express with limited stops and it was headed towards the tunnel that runs under the river (and away from my hotel). If it continued that way, I'd have some serious back-tracking to do. My only choice was to hope that the next stop would let me get off before it went too far. I tracked the route on my iPhone, wondering where I would end up. Well, eventually that bus stopped and would you believe it... I was one block from my hotel! Phew!

I grabbed a taxi, loaded my heavy bags into the back and waved my Maglev ticket (purchased earlier) in the driver's face. He got the general idea and whizzed me through the traffic to Longyang Rd station. I didn't have to wait long before the Maglev came.

At this point I should make an observation. Before boarding the maglev, my bags went through a security x-ray machine. This is understandable for airport-related baggage. However, every subway station in Shanghai also has x-ray scanners for bags (but not metal detectors). It makes me wonder what threat they are guarding against. What group(s) would want to damage such infrastructure? Or, is it more a preventative measure, much cheaper than the damage and inconvenience such a strike would cause? I guess that, while spending on security is much more than we do in Australia, over here it is a lot cheaper when counted on a per-head basis since there are so many heads.

The Maglev trip was, to be honest, unexciting. Upon startup it lifted from the track a bit, then gradually increased speed to 301 km/h. The track banked around corners and we went rather fast compared to the surrounding scenery. A group of Japanese visitors were sitting nearby, comparing it the Japanese Shinkansen (bullet train) that run at 240-300 km/h. The maglev was fairly empty, not helped by the fact that the normal subway also runs to the airport at a fraction of the ¥40 ($6) price.

Once at the airport, I did a bit of luggage rearranging, ensuring that my bag was within weight limits. This meant that my carry-on luggage was over limit, but I doubted they'd check it. When I went to checkin, I was informed that my flight would be delayed by 2 hours because the aircraft left Sydney 2 hours late due to fog. Qantas gave a meal voucher, so I sat near a power plug, ate some food and updated my trip diary. The flight left even later than planed due to a mechanical problem. The flight was good - I slept most of the way and we arrived in Sydney just after the fog had lifted. Any earlier and we would probably have been diverted to Brisbane.

My parents kindly picked me up from the airport, and I arrived home to a welcoming family including two kids who wanted all the toys.

THE TRIP IN RETROSPECT

So... 22 days, 12 hotels, 600-ish km of cycling, 4 flights, 1 overnight train, countless Chinese meals, 2 large bars of soap, 35kg of baggage and 1232 photos later, what do I think of my trip to China?

Well, thankfully there were no major mishaps. Some failed electronics, a sore bottom from riding, a bit of tourist-overdose and a slightly delayed plane were the only bad things to happen.

On the upside, I have gotten to understand a very important country in the world during a time of high growth, seeing how its people and infrastructure are growing nicely to put it on the world stage. I have seen the "old" China by riding through farmland and small rural communities as well as the "new" China evidenced by Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. I've met a range of people and am impressed with how the younger generation is tackling the future, wanting to become more "modern" (but I can also see the problems that consumerism might bring).

I thank the tour organisers (World Expeditions) for the thought and planning that went into the tour. I thank the tour leaders who assisted in the journeys. And I thank the country for being open enough for me to visit and experience bits of life in China.

The next phase in China's history will indeed be interesting as it becomes a major player in the financial, economic and military world.

But I guess the one thing the trip has done is to help me appreciate the life I have in Australia with my big house, relatively sane traffic, trains where I can sit down, skies that are blue, and breakfasts that include Vegemite.

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