Steintore
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Steintore
Thu to Sun, 05. - 08.06.2014: Xi'an to Shanghai, sunny/cloudy, 28°C to 34°C
We lugged our bags and rucksacks via taxi and bus to the airport for a 2 hours 10 minute flight to Shanghai. We had to argue about the weight of our bags - the internet booking had said 23kg each but the airport said only 20kg and one of our bags weighed 21kg. The other only weighed 16kg so we were still under the total weight for 2 bags and I managed to get one of our large rucksacks through as hand luggage.
Taxi prices inside the airport were exorbitant but we found all the locals in a long taxi queue outside that only charged a third of the prices we had so far been quoted. The queue went down quite fast and we had a 50 minute ride through Shanghai from the south west corner to the north east corner of the city where our hotel was.
Our hotel room was small and compact with no window but it was only US$14 per night which is cheap for such a huge city. It was already after 7pm so we went out for an hour to find the nearest metro station, check out the restaurants (not very appealing) and picked up some fruit and yoghurt to eat with muesli back in our room.
The next day we did over 10 hours of sightseeing! We had met some Americans on the Annapurna circuit in Nepal who had all lived in various places in Asia for a few decades. I had asked the one who lived in Shanghai what there was to see in the city and hurriedly wrote notes on a scrap of paper. This is what we used as our self guiding tour of the city for the next three days.
First off though, we had to work out the metro system. We have been to so many places and encountered so many different systems that we just take it in our stride now and it didn't take long. It was also very cheap - less than a dollar each to get into the main city area.
Our first stop was People's Square, an haphazardly arranged park with small gardens and ponds, surrounded by impressive buildings and with a huge mall underneath. We went to the food court and found a great place where we had Irish lamb and Australian beef stew!
Shanghai People's Square - 360° Panorama
(move mouse over panorama and click on the arrows)
Not exactly authentic but most of the Chinese restaurants don't have menus in English, just photos of each dish. It was impossible to tell what meat a dish contained. Plus we still had problems from India so we refused to order anything if we didn't know what it was so we had to stick to restaurants with English menus.
We walked down to the river and watched the busy channel with lots of barges and tourist boats and a few cruise ships. We went into the lobby of the Peace Hotel originally built by Victor Sassoon - a gambling tycoon who died in 1961. Then we found some "shaking machines" where I did another one of my star turns! Afterwards we got the metro that went under the river to the other side.
Helen on the 'shaking machine' - so funny!
We took photos of the Pearl Tower - the highest TV tower in the world at 457m high and walked along an elevated pedestrian walkway to the Hyatt Hotel where we had been told we could get a free view over the city from the top. (The TV tower cost $40 each to go up.)
The Hyatt was a definite highlight and quite an adventure because of two problems - it's a 5 star hotel and we were wearing battered T shirts and shorts and Kirsten had managed to rip her shorts!!
We hadn't brought that many trousers with us for the entire trip and Kirsten had split one pair when she bent over to take a photo in Nepal. So I gave her my pair of the same trousers. But ... whilst taking photos of the river an hour earlier she had yet again bent down and there was another loud ripping noise!! She had split them right down the back seam leaving a gaping hole that showed off her knickers!!
So here we were going into a 5 star hotel with Kirsten using her camera bag over her shoulder and strategically positioned to try and hide the hole. We put on a brave face and walked in as if we belonged there and took the elevator up to the hotel lobby on the 54th floor. Heads high, we walked past the lobby guessing that there would be another elevator for the restaurant and bar called Cloud 9 on the 87th floor.
So far so good. We were met by a staff member as the door opened onto the 87th floor who politely asked if she could help us. I asked if we could take a look around and they let us!!! We got great views for free over Shanghai and were probably the only ones who didn't buy any over priced drinks! At least the staff treated us well and we left before the sunset crowd came in so we didn't cause them a problem. No one mentioned Kirsten's green knickers!
Shanghai Part 1 - The Bund, Putong, 87th floor at the Grand Hyatt Hotel
Afterwards we caught a ferry across the river (the cheap version of a river cruise) for views of the high rises that were just being lit up. We walked back to the metro doing shopping along the way to make ham baguettes back in our hotel room at 10pm. An exhausting day!
For our next day we downloaded a walking tour of the old city onto our ebook reader, caught the metro and bought lunch from the underground mall to eat in People's Park.
The old city is being torn down bit by bit to make way for the city planners view of the future of Shanghai - i.e. modern high rises. So there wasn't that much to see but there won't be anything left of it soon so at least we got to see something. The most interesting part was a walk through an indoor bird and insect market. There were some very prehistoric looking crickets in circular bamboo cages and plastic jars that looked really weird!
We also went into a very touristy shopping area within the old city and tried to buy presents for Kirsten's nieces and nephews - not an easy task! Finally we bought sandwich making items for our evening meal and breakfast for tomorrow.
For our final day we got the metro and then took a 1 hour bus ride to the "Venice of Shanghai" - one of the many water towns around the city called Zhujiajiao where numerous boats are steered along the waterways by a single man using a paddle. (I didn't hear any Chinese renditions of O Sole Mio!)
Unfortunately it is very touristy now and we had met the weekend crowd (Sunday). We were jostled along and managed to get away from the crowds by going down a small alleyway where there were hardly any people. Then we wandered around the narrow streets and across various old bridges crossing several arms of the river system.
There were also various places for a Chinese pedicure - where customers put their feet into fish tanks with dead skin-eating fish!!! The fish are too small to be piranhas and no one came out missing toes, so it can't be that bad!
Shanghai Part 2 - Shanghai by night, markets, Zhijiajiao (the Venice of China)
In the end it was too crowded and smelly for us - there was some kind of dried fish being sold at virtually every store that stunk to high heaven. I've never breathed through my mouth for so long!! We spent just a couple of hours there before going back to the bus station and hitting the queue to get back to the city.
It was already after 5pm and went into Papa Johns for pizza. The days outing isn't something we would recommend but we have noticed how many young Chinese there are - they're all well dressed, well behaved and all of them use the rubbish bins. It is such a difference to our experience in India!
