Chillin' in China

I dont want to rub it in for those who are still at work, making the world spin and so forth, but it feels so good to be travelling again! Wednesday morning we threw on the backpacks, left the apartment, got the train to central Kobe, the monorail to the port and the ferry to the airport. After a nice, polite efficient check-in at Kansai messed around in the airport for a while, then half an hour before our plane was due to take off Marcus decided he might use his phone card to ring home. (In my defense, it was only my second phone call since leaving home and the card had to be used in Japan! Besides, it meant we didn't have to queue...) So going through customs 15 minutes before take off there was a man with a walky talky waiting for us saying something like "Here they are, useless foreigners" into it. Turns out you had to shuttle from customs to the plane so we were cutting it pretty close, but got on in the end so no dramas! The plane ride was terrible and the food was shit, I dont want to talk about that.

Shanghai is amazing, much different from what we expected. No more little men in straw hats running around with rickshaws, it's probably one of the most modern cities (in parts) I've ever seen! Off the plane and straight through customs (they only really seemed to care whether you had been in touch with sick chickens, not if you had a bag full of crack) we jumped on the mighty Maglev Train into town. We covered 30kms in 8 minutes maxing out at a speed of 431kmph! From the Maglev we got onto the subway system. I was pretty impressed with Japan's subway/train system but this one just put it to shame! The ticket into town was about $0.70NZ and the carriages were brand new. The stations have huge TV screens which show you soccer highlights while showing a count down to the next train. We got the subway to Nanjing Rd which is the main drag in downtown Shanghai. Nanjing Rd is a pedestrian mall with every shop imaginable and an abundance of neon. We walked out and were immediately accosted by people trying to sell watches, DVDs etc... It's good to be back... The immediate difference we noticed from Japan was the lack of uptight conservatism in the locals. People seem to say what they think, yell at each other if need be and are not scared to approach foreigners. In our first day we were approached about ten times, usually by young Chinese uni students speaking fluent English who just wanted to talk to us (where we are from, where we are going etc...).

We wandered a bit trying to find a cheap hotel, and after being turned away at what must have been a "Chinese only" hotel found a cheapish one and dumped the gear. We went out for a walk and a look around that night and had a good feed from a back alley street stall for a dollar each. We had been a bit slack in planning this trip and hadnt yet brought a lonely planet. We found a bookstore with a whole lot of them, but no lonely planet China... I asked the guy in the shop who said "No no no". Hmmm OK. Long story short, after trolling through a number of bookstores with comprehensive Lonely Planet collections (nix China) it turned out that the government has banned the publication because of some obscure reference it makes, or something equally ridiculous. Luckily we found another flavour of China guidebook so we could do some planning.

Walking along we were accosted by yet another group of youths wanting to talk. They asked us to go and have Chinese tea with them. They were all in town for this one occasion that is once every three years or something and all this special tea had been brought up from the South of China by horse. We went along and it was really interesting, learnt about what all the different tea and Chinese symbols mean (cant remember though!) and the proper way to hold your cup and drink the tea (apparently this will give you some wicked street cred if you pull it off somewhere here). Everything you say, do and feel here has some symbolic meaning. After the tea ceremony it had started raining so we headed back to the hotel for an early one.

The next day it was hosing down, the first time on the trip that weather had affected our plans as we were going to go sightseeing. As it was still pouring we went to the Shanghai Museum. This was OK, the impressive things were the bronze artifacts, some of them around 4000 years old, its amazing how far the history goes back here! There was also a cool mask section with some mean looking war masks, but apart from that it was mostly typical museum stuff - nice but boring. Unfortunately the weather was still terrible as we left so the rest of the day was rather uneventful, went down to The Bund and looked at the amazing skyline of Pudong (see below) and played 20 questions with various local students. We were also asked to pose for a number of photographs with locals, so much so we were about to start charging for the service!

On day three, the rain finally stopped, so we headed out to see the sights. And there are a lot of sights to see in Shanghai. We started our walking tour in the Southwest area of Shanghai, called the French Concession. Back in the day there were several Concessions here, each one controlled by a different country and, as such, governed by that country's laws. This, combined with Shanghai's lax building codes (hopefully just in terms of appearance) and their obvious desire to build, build, build, has led to the most incredible mix of architecture I have ever seen in one city. There are colossal skyscrapers, stately colonials, ugly monstrosities and pieces of art as far as the eye can see. And the most amazing part is that, despite this strange mix and in many ways because of it, this is one of the most attractive cities in the world. We wandered for hours (and took more photos than any other one city), without getting the least bit bored. The other reason Shanghai is such an attractive city is that they have beautiful parks everywhere. It seems strange at first to be amongst flowers, trees and lush grass and yet surrounded by a skyline packed with multi-storey apartment blocks and buildings.

After the old, European buildings and tree-lined avenues of the French Concession, we moved into the Old Town, which is home to more traditional buildings (and modern buildings made to look traditional). Here we visited the impressive Yuyuan Gardens, which were an absolute maze of rocks, water, pagodas and flora. After some delicious steamed buns in one of the aforementioned parks for lunch, we wandered East to the Huangpu River. Running for a couple of kilometers up the West side of the river is The Bund. Here the architecture is colonial, with several very impressive and imposing buildings. The views from the walkway running the length of The Bund are stunning, both during the day and night. To finish our tour of the city, we crossed the river in the quite bizarre "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel". It consisted of individual train cars being pulled through a brightly lit tunnel. Probably cost a lot to build. Not sure why they bothered. This got us to the newest area of Shanghai, Pudong (which actually looks a bit Batman/Gotham Cityish at night). Pudong is a collection of some of the most amazing modern architecture on this planet. Love it or hate it, you have it give it to them for having the balls to do it. The Pearl TV Tower (468m) is the famous one and up close it really strikes you at just how odd it is. Some crazy architect probably drew it up as a joke. Then the forward-thinking Chinese probably said "OK, that'll make people look, build it." And build it they did. Along with several other (albeit more conventional) amazing buildings. One of these is the 420m Jin Mao tower. On the 88th (top) floor is an observatory, that we felt needed visiting, despite the poor visibility. The elevator was quick and the views stunning.

Back on the other side of the river we caught one of the many night cruises that operate along the Huangpu. This was a relaxing and excellent way to see the lights of the city and get a bit of night photography in. Our enjoyment may have been helped along slightly by the evening drinks we had indulged in. Our 600mL beers and 500mL bottle of local whiskey (with Coke mixers) cost about the same as the two coffees we had had earlier in the day! The cruise lasted for about an hour and then we decided to finish up with some night shots along The Bund. Unfortunately, after taking just a few photos we decided to go into a bar for a drink. When we reappeared, the city lights had all been turned off so I missed some of the shots I was hoping to take.

Our last day in Shanghai was spent relaxing and walking back round some of our favourite parts. Then we jumped on the night train for Xi'an...