Day 1: Food glorious food and jet lag!

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Just to explain a little bit about this trip, over the next 2 weeks the Bach choir are in Shanghai and Hong Kong to perform 4 concerts in various amazing venues. This blog will probably be about the fun and games that happen in between all the music making and what it is like experiencing Asia for the first time. Mostly I (Helena) will be writing it but with additions from my 2 glamorous Assistants James & Sophie. I also have to apologise for the fact that this is very late but this mainly due to lack of time and lack of Wi-Fi.



After a flight that took just over 10 hours we all found ourselves in Shanghai early in the morning ready to take on the day fuelled by jetlag. After getting to our hotel, showering and vaguely unpacking we decided to head off to central Shanghai to try and make the most of our only free whole day. We jumped in a taxi and started our tour at the Bund which is the old financial district of Shanghai and walked along the promenade to look at the amazing skyline and shareholders. After only 10 minutes, Alex and I had our first taste of being fairer westerners in Asia when a Chinese man wanted to have his photo with us which we actually said yes to (after assessing whether we were being scammed or not!!!) and then we had to get used to being stared at as well (I knew we were a funny looking lot! Especially that james).

At lunchtime we had our first taste of authentic Chinese cuisine and it was amazing!!! I personally become addicted to the spicy tofu and couldn't stop eating it. Real Chinese food is so good, it's not like anything at home, it's very light and healthy and so tasty.

After lunch the 4 of us decided to go on a bus tour of Shanghai and took the financial district route which included us going over a gigantic bridge on an open top bus and having to cling to each other so we didn't get blown off. We drove past the financial skyscrapers and the most famous building in Shanghai, the pearl tower. After we completed the route, we decided to go and see People's Square which took us a little way to find and by this time the jet lag haze was starting to take its toll and we staggered into Starbucks (yes they are everywhere here!) For iced coffee. By this point we decided to head back to the hotel before our food tour in the evening.

It was at this point that the metro came into our lives. Shanghai metro is such great value, it basically only costs 40p per ride and is clean, quick and very efficient. I have to mention though that I did get stuck at the barriers and got into a bit of a panic whilst the rest of the gang watched and laughed (every metro ride since has included a quip about this event!). We got the metro back to the nearest stop we could find to our hotel only to find out about 15 mins after we had got off that our hotel is a very long walk from there!! We ended up getting so lost and tired that we had to get a taxi back to the hotel feeling a little deflated that our metro adventure had failed.

We all freshened up and then got back in another taxi and went out to go on our organised good tour of Shanghai. We met up with our guide Mitch at the first food market and after choosing the desserts we wanted (mainly tapioca with various fruits and cream) we went into a market restaurant and had a feast. Some of the foods we are were: crayfish, scallops with garlic, enoki mushroom skewers, leek skewers, lotus flower skewers, rump lamb skewers, Chinese breads all washed down with lots of beer. But this was not the end of our food experience that evening, oh no!! We then went to a second food market where we ate a form of Chinese pizza bread, duck necks, salad with foraged things and jellyfish, rice cake stir fry, beef noodles and much much more. By this point we were close to exploding and all headed off to find taxis back.



After being awake for 36 hours, both Sophie and I collapsed. Onto our brick hard beds or brick beds as we like to call them. Stay tuned for Sophie' s blog tomorrow.

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