Europe 2019

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Europe 2019
Air NZ flight to Shanghai in Premium Plus was worth every extra cent.
Large recliner seats No 25 A and B
Chicken starter and triple cooked pork belly with cheese cake to finish.
Europe 2019
We arrived Shanghai Pudong Airport around 7.00am and were the first people off the plane unfortunately we queued in the wrong line for half an hour before being directed to the transit queue for another half an hour.
Finally we were allowed into China. Raewyn was in charge of transportation to our hotel and had sorted out the Metro from the airport.
The next problem was to buy the ticket, but our credit card wouldn’t work in the ticket machine, so we went and changed NZ$50 into Yen so we could buy the ticket.
The train trip took around an hour and a half and cost Y7.00 each (NZ$4.00).
We walked the 600m to our very centrally located Guxiang Hotel, arriving around 10.00am.
We were prepared to leave our luggage and have a look around before we could check in, but surprise, surprise we could check into our ‘upgraded’ room.
After a good shower and change of clothes we took the hop on hop off bus tour of the city so we could decide where and what we wanted to see and do.
Shanghai is the biggest city in China and the biggest city in the world with a population exceeding 24 million people!!
My first impression was how clean and quiet the central city was, as we had been into China in 1992 and visited many dirty, smoggy cities, so this was a pleasant surprise for us.
Pretty much all the Chinese versions of Vespa scooters were converted to electric, with the batteries under the foot plate and with an electric hub motor in the rear wheel-brilliant!!
All the cars, vans, taxis and the few trucks we saw were all running very clean and quiet on the streets.
We never saw any big delivery trucks in the city, it seems that small vans and scooters delivered all the goods locally.
We got off the bus in the Bund area, beside the river so we could take the tunnel light show ride to the other side of the river where the Oriental Pearl Tower extends 351m skyward!!
We walked the riverside for a while, watching the various river boats that work the river all at the same speed of about 5kms an hour.
We walked back to our hotel from there, experiencing all mixed smells of spicy food being cooked with the odd whiff of the overworked sewage system.....
That evening we had a fabulous buffet dinner at the hotel and an early night.
Day two, we were up and about with a great breakfast at the hotel then on the bus again that took us to the business centre where we spent a couple of hours in the Aquarium.
This was very well presented with sparkling clean water and the display of Jellyfish was just stunning.
After the Aquarium, we made our way to the tower, and joined the queues again and again, but the view from up the various viewing platforms was just amazing - the city scape went from horizon to horizon.
We made our way down and took the light tunnel again- on our way back to the hotel we had our dinner at a local family restaurant.
We had booked our room for two nights even through we were flying out at midnight, so we had full use of the room until around 7.00 pm when we checked out and made our way back to the airport on the train.
This was such a good experience and would recommend it as a stopover as it’s a direct flight by Air NZ. We paid a bit extra on this flight and flew Peasant Plus and now there is no going back to cattle class!!
We are now in Marbella with our long time friends Brigette and Toni for a few days.

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Comments

[Josie Fenton]

Hi there
Hi Raewyn and Rosco. Lovely blog, love reading what you are up to. We are leaving for Europe on two weeks and not back until later in August. We may see you somewhere over that side of the world.Xx

[Rosco p]

Back at ya
We will look out for you?

[Ann-Maree Kururangi]

We absolutely love your blogs. I just said to John that you have such hugely busy days I don’t know how you find the time to do blogs as well!! , ,,