Shanghai

We caught the “D” train that goes between Hangzhou to Nanjing with a stop in Shanghai, departing 8:25 and arriving at 10:02. This is a very modern fast electric train reaching speeds of about 150KM.

After checking in, we took a cab up to a computer mall to get a new transformer for my Linksys wireless router. We eventually negotiated the price down to 70Y from 140 or so.

From the computer mall we walked back to the hotel to meet our travelling companions, Olga and Yesid, who had just arrived from Hong Kong.

Our travels for the remainder of the day took us to the Shanghai Museum, followed by dinner, a stroll along Nanjing Road and then down the Bund returning back to our hotel.

The Shanghai Museum is rated a “must see” in many of the tourist guides. That may be a mater of personal choice and interest but as a free attraction you can’t complain about the price. We visited the Ancient Chinese Sculpture, Chinese Seal, Chinese Painting, Chinese Coin and the Chinese Ming & Qing Furniture galleries. Quite an offering.

Along our wanderings after we left the Museum we stumbled upon “Food Street” where we found a sea food restaurant. In front on the sidewalk were tanks of water each holding a different kind of fish from which to select. In the end we may have paid too much by Chinese standards but it was a good meal. For example they added a 5Y surcharge for cold beer. As well we later noticed the the locals selected their fish from the tank and watched them weigh it. We didn’t do that and I suspect our trust might have been misplaced.

Nanjing Road is a walking street. At night it is colourful as a result of the lights and crowded with shoppers, peddlers and walkers. I bought a football shirt and pants. We were able to haggle them down to 60Y from 140 but you just don’t really know if that was a good deal by local standards. All you can say is that there’s fun in the haggling experience and the final price didn’t seem outrageous by Toronto standards.

The Bund is a couple of things but on this night it was a promenade running along the Huangpu River, packed with people offering a spectacular view of the Pudong. The Bund was more of a zoo than Nanjing Road. I was faced with a continuous barrage of peddlers try to sell their stuff from watches to toys and ironically Communist Chinese flags. Ironic because I felt I was in the crucible of a free market society.

We finally made it back to the hotel and without any hesitation we headed back to our rooms and crashed for the night.

The first notable event of our second day was we slept in until 5AM. We must be acclimatizing ourselves to local time.

We met Alex, our guide for Shanghai and proceeded over to the Bund. Although a bit of a repeat from the previous night, during the day it is a completely different experience. We walked the full extent of the promenade to Huangpu Park with limited interruption from peddlers.

After the Bund we toured Yuyan Garden, a private residence built on 60 hectare in the 16th century.

After lunch we visited a silk factory and then made our way to a jade shop followed by a walk along Nanjing road.

But the highlight of the day was reserved for last: a ride on the Maglev: the high-speed train to Pudong airport. It’s reported top speed is 400+KM however today it topped out at just 300KM.

The train left us at the airport waiting for our flight to Zhangjiajie.