Like the biggest city I've ever seen!
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2007
1
68
Trip End
Apr 30, 2008
Shanghai,
China
Monday, April 7, 2008
We arrived a bit later in the morning on our train (one more to go!) and did an orientation around the area of our hotel, which was super close to the Bund - the riverside walkway of Shanghai that gives you great views of the Pudong area, where all the new sky scrapers and towers are built/being build (SOOO many cranes - probably one of the most common features of Chinese cities!). We also wandered down Nanjing street, which turns into a pedestrian shopping area.
Once we'd gotten our bearings, we took the train to the Maglev station. The Maglev is a Magnetic Levitation train that links Shanghai city to Pudong Airport. It's the fastest train in the world, reaching a speed of 431 km/h - we didn't realize how fast this actually was until we rode the thing! It started out calmly enough, and even at about 250 or 300 km/h it didn't seem so bad. But once we crested about 380 km/h, the cars and countryside below and beside us became almost a blur and then when the other train travelling in the reverse direction passed us - the feeling was crazy! Of course, you only remain at the top speed for about a minute, as the train then needs to slow down again in time to stop at its destination - the whole trip of 35 km or so took less than 7 minutes!
A great deal of the rest of the time was spent wandering the city. We went to the Shanghai Museum - free entrance meant an hour-long wait in line! But the exhibits were pretty impressive and some of the porcelain displays were gorgeous! We wandered down the whole Bund and went into the Yuanyuan Gardens and Bazaar area - basically a huge tourist trap but with a lot of neat buildings and PLENTY of interesting odours (we ended up calling one square 'Wet Dog Urine Square' because of the mixture of smells it seemed to be emanating - YUM! We also rode the metro system a few times - the roughest contact sport I've ever been in! People here are RUTHLESS when it comes to getting on trains (or getting in line, or crossing the street for that matter), but with elbows up and our slogan of 'no mercy!', we were able to make our way through the crowds no problem!
Our last night we saw the Shanghai acrobats on stage - most of the acts were pretty good (although calling girls on rollers skates the "aerial ballet dancers" was a bit of a stretch) and the finale was 5 motorcyclists riding around a spherical cage, which was pretty impressive. We checked out the local bar scene too, but because the weekend was mostly a holiday (spirit sweeping weekend or something) combined with a sunday evening meant pretty quite on that front (Viv, we gotta come back and go out here!).
Finally, our last day we checked out some local markets and the French Concession - WHEW! We did so much! Like Xi'an, there's PLENTY of touristy things to do here and I look forward to coming back and just relaxing and enjoying the city! And there's only one more stop left on this tour - thank god, because I cry every time I look at my bank statement!
