5 great things to do in Shanghai

Sorry about the lack of picture for this blog, I am having a complete nightmare as far as interenet connections and passwords go and have hopefully clicked on the correct Chinese part of the blog website to figure out how to add a blog without photo!
Our 2nd train journey was far better than the 1st, we were in a compartment with people that we knew so slept a lot better and so it all went far quicker.

Great thing #1: Visit the Bund: The buildings on the far side of the river have only popped up in the last 20 years, it unbelievable to think that there were'nt high rise building until then. But now Shanghai is sinking because there are too many of them! The tallest building is the JingMao tower, but the coolest is probably the Pearl Tower because of it's weird spheres.

Great thing #2: Walk along the Nanjing Road: Hmm, actually that wasn't exactly great, but well worth a look. A lot of shops!! Plus someone every few meters saying "GucciPrada watchbagdvd" we became quite accomplished at saying no thankyou and giving them a stern look!

Great thing #3: Visit the Old City: This was definitley the best thing that we did in Shanghai. Our guide had reccomended that we visit the Yu Gardens, which we did but they weren't really what we were wanting - lots of big tourists groups led by a guide with a flag so we looked at someone's Lonely Planet and realised we were close to the old city. We didn't really know what to expect. It was how most Chinese live. Working and living out of one room. Preparing their lunch on the street. Washing hanging from the outside of building. Buildings that people live in next to ones that have fallen down.
All of this with a back drop of skyscrapers.
It was a good insight into the real Shanghai, we occassionally felt like we were intruding but I think that we were as interesting to them as they were to us.

Great thing #4: Have a beer on the roof top garden at the Peace Hotel: This felt a bit weird after we had been walking around such a poor area of Shanghai. But we were hot, thirsty and wanted to see the views. It was fantastic - looking out across the Bund. Definitely how the other half live though (50 yuan for our beers rather than the 5 we often pay) and it was full of westerners. Very relaxing though.

Great thing #5: Have a beer on a street corner(so great we did it twice!): We successfully managed to find a Chinese style restaurant that had an English menu and had a tasty lunch. After which we quite fancied another beer (we're not alcoholics honest) but there weren't any bars really - only one but they wanted 25 yuan for a beer! We found a little refreshments stand that sold cold beer so we bought one each and sat on this stone bench and watched the world go by. It was amazing. The hundreds of bikes riding fast and all missing each other were fascinating to watch. We watched them and they watched us, it was great!


The worst thing to do in Shanghai: Go to the JingMao tower: Chris & I have a new travelling rule - don't go to places that are high & expensive because it will be disapointing!
We wanted to go to the JingMao tower because it's the tallest building in Shanghai and they have an a bar on the 87th floor from which to see the views. We turned up nice and early on the first night we were there but they have a dress code - no sandals for men. So because Chris had his sandals on we couldn't go in . Scruffy trainers ok, smart sandals not ok!
We tried again the following night but had been to dinner before hand and it was much later when we arrived so had to wait in the bar on the 54th floor until a table became free upstairs.

It was hideous. Just full of overly made up wives of stuffed shirst! We were very unimpresesd especially after being in the old city for a lot of the day.
To top of a bad experience when a table finally came free upstairs it was too late - just as we got there the light on the buildings went off!!

Never mind though - we rectified the situation by getting beer from the supermarket next to our hotel and sat on the steps!

The following day we mostly got supplies for our mammoth 27 hour train journey into the countryside!

Hopefully we'll be able to put some more photos up soon. Currently in the beautiful countryside and going ot a cookery school this afternoon.