Shanghai

After another surprisinly good sleep (this time on the 'hard sleeper') we read our book and sat opposite a Chinese lady who said she wanted us to teach her English and kept passing us notes (strange but quite sweet!)! We exchanged email addresses, but hopefully we won't hear anything more!

We arrived in Shanghai with no clue where we were going to stay that night. It sounds good at the time to wing it but when time gets on you would just rather know! Anyway Emma led the way this time and after booking our train to Hong Kong and we were in a hostel in no time. Shanghai's lack of tourist information was most unhelpful however. Apparently its 'Tourism month' but we did not find one tourist information and no-one had a map!! Thanks for nothing!

Shanghai is so westernised in terms of shops (and people) but it does take it 100 times further. There are like 100 massive shopping malls. Not just 1 Gucci shop but 10! But it also means we are no longer being stared, which is a welcome break!

We went to the French Concession for dinner (which has French architecture but after hours of walking we couldn't find it!) - edit we found it the next day (not worth it). We eventually went to 'Roys' for dinner. It did have a more western menu (it actually served spring rolls!) so we enjoyed dinner and beer for about 8 quid.

Whilst we were walking around we saw this picture outside a cafe... what does it say or mean?!?!



Day 2 went to find the 55DSL shop hoping for a bargain but the t-shirts were 58 quid!! You're avin a laff! I didn't say that though - don't think they'd understand my Welsh bristolian!

Later we went over to the business area where all the cool buildings are on the post card (ie TV tower). We decided that it worked out cheaper to have the cocktails on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt than the TV tower viewing platform, so you can guess what we did! After ears popping twice we got to the top (after 3 lift changes and having to pass the posh people in the hotel (we were in shorts and flip flops)) eventually we got to the Cloud 9 bar! Views were amazing as day turned to night and the cocktails were good to!

Next day went to the old area of the city with the old markets. It was pretty nice, again with market stalls and old buildings. However western influence still takes over with MaccyD's, Starbucks and Haagen Dazs.

We knew the locals like to keep cool on their mopeds, but this takes the biscuit! See picture below!



We bought a memory card as we needed one. Now a 4b memory card in a shop here costs 70 quid! Knowing that amazon sell them for about 10 quid we didn't want to pay much so haggled to get a fake one for about 7quid. As I write this, we have had problems with it!

We headed back to the hostel in enough time to catch our train from Shanghai SOUTH station. However on arrival we were informed of the correct departure station being the other side of the city! Thankfully an English speaking Chinese lady was present as our despaire unfolded and she managed to re-arrange our train to Hong Kong for 2 nights time for no extra charge. We headed back to the hostel, complained (as they sent us to the wrong station) and got a discount for 2 more nights.

As Shanghai is expensive and we didn't have money to spend, we got up late and read our books in the nearby peoples park.

No such problems the next night catching the night train from the correct station! An 18 hour journey to Hong Kong was waiting for us!

-Observations:
Food in China is nothing like the chinese in UK. There are no spring rolls, no sweet and sour chicken and no crispy duck wraps etc. Its still very nice but not what we expected. Plus adding not understanding the menu and then being causious that you don't order pigs ear or trotter or chicken feet! The street food is really good though, all sorts of different snacks. The chinese style stuffed breads are the best!

Some chinese people do actually wear masks to help combat swine flu. We saw 3 men having a business meeting and 1 was wearing a mask - maybe he had bad breath!

Electronic items are really expensive in China! Totally unexpected as everything back home says 'made in china'!!