Shanghai

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Day 9
We start the day with a buffet. Cereal and milk, woo hoo! Unlike any brekky buffet before, this one includes weird and not so wonderful red bean creations, noodles galore, stir fry veggies, sushi and of course, the ever present breakfast crème caramel. Hmmm...

From here we board a fast train and arrive in Shanghai for a fleeting 30 hour visit. You know I don't like missing out on things so I've decided we are going to see EVERYTHING this sprawling city has to offer in one day, yep ONE day. To give you some perspective, Shanghai has almost 3 times the number of people as NY (around 18-22m, no one seems to really know) and covers an area of over 6000 sq km. Not to be put off by this, we head off. We encounter the first rain of our trip so that puts an end to People's Park. We head underground and catch the metro to Pudong. As we emerge back to the surface we encounter the new Shanghai and wow! This is amazing. To think less than 20 years ago, this mass of buildings was merely farmland and countryside. Until the Govt decided to create a new financial hub of modern China. And that they did! The Oriental Pearl Tower is truly a site to behold along with countless skyscrapers that surround it. We walk amongst them until we reach the supertall 494m World Financial Centre tower, the steps of which are covered with a display of light up pandas?!? There is no stopping me, I want to head to the top of this baby. Scott baulks at the entrance fee, I'm still confused by the conversion rate, and unwittingly hand over our life savings and board the elevator to the 100th floor. We are ushered through by a dozen English speaking hosts and exit the lift to a rainbow colour-changing disco floor, so this is where our entrance fee has been spent! The kids love it and we have to drag them away to see what we've come for...Shanghai in all its glory. In every direction are residential skyscrapers and you begin to appreciate where the 20 mil + people fit. We look down onto The Bund, a strip of European-style buildings by the river built when trade between the East and West was at its peak.

We head back down underground and encounter the Bund sightseeing tunnel. I'm thinking travelator through a tunnel with interesting facts on the walls about Shanghai. But no, we board a space age capsule that glides us through intergalactic lights and music until we reach the other side of the river. I guess that will do! We wander the Bund and nominate our favourite buildings.

No time to waste we follow the general crowds, assuming correctly they are heading where we want to go, to the Yu Gardens. Again unexpected, this is Old Town Shanghai, is relatively untouched by modern influences and embodies the Yuyuan Tourist Mart. We search for the zig-zag bridge, looks cool in the tourist brochure photos, but can't find it anywhere. It should be here somewhere, the map and signs say so. Oh there it is, under half a million tourists...how tranquil and delightful!

Sara presses on with the lure of M&M World. Opened early July, this is the first one outside the States, and appears to be a winner, judging by the hoards or people pushing each other aside to buy overpriced bags of every colour of M&M imaginable. We get our share and escape the madness.

We scored in the hotel department here. Our room overlooks the pedestrian street of Nanjing Road. We sit and sip our tea watching the world go by.

Day 10
We catch up with a Chinese friend I used to work for. She fills in the blanks of many wonderings we've had since arriving. Like who's moving into these countless number of high rise apartment complexes we've seen under construction over the whole country. As China westernizes and the living standards improve, the shift is moving from 70/30%!o(MISSING)f people living in the country/city to 50/50. No doubt this will continue until it reaches what we're accustomed to. And the cities are only going to get busier?!?

Its time to head to the airport. We could ride the metro or we could ride a train that levitates over an above-ground track and travels at 430km an hour. Hmmm... decisions, decisions. The Maglev it is. Whoa...it hardly feels like your moving, its so smooth. A mere 7 minutes later I have the weirdest feeling of déjà vu. Oh that's right, we have been here before, more times than we care to remember!

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