Shanghai

Dear Reader,

As many of you may know, Google, Gmail & Blogger is blocked in China; so no posts were able to be made until we reached Russia; and we can't get the internet on the train ...will try to catch up along the way.

Regards,

Di & Michael.
---NOW BACK TO THE BLOG---

 Wednesday - July 26

Departed Sydney after an hour and a half delay at the airport because only one runway was in operation (for both landing and take off) due to strong crosswinds.

Bye Bye Sydney - see you later

Our flight was ten and a half hours, smooth and pleasant with good movies, food and wines.  At Shanghai Pudong airport we caught the Maglev train - an amazing German designed train that uses magnetic levitation over the ‘track’ and can travel at speeds over 400KpH. Within 8 minutes at 301KpH, we had travelled to the Shanghai Longyang Station - a distance of over 32Km.

The Maglev indicator and our speed

Although it was 9.30pm at night, the taxi took almost an hour to travel the 4Km to our mid town hotel. The traffic in Shanghai makes Sydney peak hour look like child’s play.

Thursday - July 27

Getting about Shanghai is easy with its amazing fast & safe Metro system - a London tube-like network of modern, fast trains that run every 2 to 3 minutes for 19 hours per day and covers the entire city. All signage is in both Chinese & English both on the platforms and in each carriage. A free phone app provides further ease of planning. A 3 day card for use anywhere only cost 44Rmb - roughly $A16, amazing value.

Central Shanghai has wide streets with a multitude leading design label shops that cater for a burgeoning and growing middle class of Chinese consumer. The key things that stood out were very clean well-maintained roads and streets, a mix of very interesting architectural styles - both old and new, and everybody had no regard for anyone’s personal space with push and shove is the order of the day. Despite all that, hawkers or beggars rarely approached us and one felt very safe and at ease.

That night, Di and Ian arrived at the hotel and we went to and amazing German restaurant in the lively French quarter of Shanghai as the guest of Ian’s work colleagues Rocky, Black San and Julie who work with in Shanghai.  We didn’t need rocking when they drove us back to the hotel.

Friday - July 28.

Happy Birthday Ian - a significant milestone

Today we needed to collect our pre ordered train ticket for the train to Beijing. So it was off to the gigantic Shanghai Hongquio railway station, first using the Metro to get there but then spent nearly 2-3 hours finding the ticket office (we had instructions however the location was closed due to renovations and the new were far from clear. Our inquiry ‘Where is the platform” was greeted with either conflicting hand directions or broken English that they don’t understand. Unlike airports and the Metro this station was hard to navigate for anyone who doesn’t speak Chinese

After some shopping were met up with Rocky and his crew, Lily and Black Sun, who drove us to the opposite side of the YongPo river to the Shanghai World Financial district.

The Shanghai skyline in the Financial district

 It has an amazing collection of modern and interestingly designed skyscrapers, which are now well-recognised symbol of the modern China - a leading global economy.

Lily and the two Di's

We visited the tallest building; Shanghai World Financial Centre. 100 floors and 467 meters high often refereed to as the Shanghai Eye resembles a upright bottle opener due to its see-through glass flooring at the upper levels.

View through the glass floor

Black Sun, Lily , Michael, Ian and Rocky

Next we celebrated Ian’s birthday in magnificent style with a gourmet Peking Duck banquet at the 5 star DoDong restaurant in an amazing shopping mall a short walk away.

Rocky, Black Sun and Ian 

This was our last night in Shanghai....

The Birthday Boy!