City of lights and the worlds tallest roof top
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2008
1
8
65
Trip End
May 2009
Shanghai,
Shanghai,
China
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Shanghai is an amazing city divided by the river Huang Pu. On the west is the French Consession area, buildings dating back beyond the Quin Dynesty before the opium wars, then on the east you have the all new high tech financial disrict which makes Canary Wharf look like toy town.
There is a "sight seeing" tunnel that goes under the river, to get you across to / from east to west its 40 rmb for a single trip and thats 40 rmb too much!!! dont bother, there is nothing to see in the tunnel, take a taxi or the metro, line 2 its about 4 rmb.
Mac and Mabel liked the busses as they were free.... well it was for them. It may have had someting to with the group crashing onto the bus armed with 100y notes and pointing at the map
Andy
. His look of horror and arm waving clearly indicated it was a freebee.... quality. Kristina, who is about 30ft tall terrorised an old bloke by asking if we were on the right route to the museum, the good old pointing at the map trick works well here.The Buddist Jade temple was woth a visit, but the best Buddah is hidden around the back and costs a bit more to see. In the main hall there were loads of little Buddah statues with names on, and I mean loads...Andy, the gay looking one reakons that they were all called Clive or Howard.... you needed to be there but we laughed.
We have now done plane, train, metro, taxi, bus, walk, bike.... just boat, horse, rickshaw and donkey to go.
We ate at the famous Grandmothers resturant again, not helped by Andy "Marco Polo" Stevend taking us on a LONG MARCH around the city with a confident I know where I am going follow me! Ha, pay back will be slow and painful mate. We were saved by a kind young woman who led us like school kids to our destinantion.
The Shanghai acrobats were fab and are worth seeing, but take a sick bag for the 5 mad blokes on bikes in the cage. The group then went up the Jin Mao tower for cocktails and to see the city 97 floors below. Free to get up but you have to buy a drink from the Cloud Nine bar, this will cost about 90y for a cocktail AND there is a service charge so don't expect any change. They give you the biggest bowl of Nobbies Nuts etc each to dehydrate you so you buy more drink..... it works so be beware. The views were stunning. The bar is open from 17.30 to 02.00 anda bit hard to find as you have to take 3 seperate lifts..... enter by the revolving doors in the hotel loby and don't forget your credit card!
