Shanghai in the Blink of an Eye!

Oct 29th & Oct 30th

Our train ride from Beijing to Shanghai was quite interesting. Despite what you may believe about the Chinese being neat, orderly, and organized the opposite is actually true. Upon arriving at the train station in Beijing we were overwhelmed by people pushing and shoving trying to all squeeze through a small opening to show their tickets to the one security guard who was letting people into the station. We next had to put our bags through an x-ray machine and walk through a metal detector. We walked into the main entrance and looked up at a huge screen with all of the train info, track number, and times written out in Chinese. Since we couldn’t read anything but the times we were clueless. We looked around desperately looking for someone that we could ask. No one wanted to help us, and said no before we could even show them our ticket or try to formulate a question in a way that they might understand. We finally found the train masters’ booth and got in the back of the line to get some help as to where we should go. While waiting in line we were cut by two separate Chinese people. We said something to them both and we were ignored, its so frustrating that everyone here is fighting for themselves. It’s very clear that the Chinese have no appreciation for anyone other than themselves and no care for anybody expect their family. The train master rudely pointed us in the right direction and we entered a large lounge. This area was packed. People were spilling into the alley of the walkway and everyone was very close. We finally found one nice Chinese guy who showed us that he was on the same train and after about 15 minutes motioned to us that it was our turn to board the train when a Chinese lady came over the loud speaker. I think that a number of trains must have been called all at the same time because there was a sudden movement and everyone started running and pushing towards the narrow exit of the lounge. All passengers needed to go through a single carrousel. We were packed in like sardines, Jess and I couldn’t even turn slightly to the side to see each other. We were pushed and shoved from every direction. We each have huge backpacks which weight more than either of us want to admit and its very difficult to navigate, or even move when your being pushed from all direction. At one point there was no place for me to move my feet but my upper body was being pushed, and with such a heavy bag I was almost positive that I was going to fall over. I really didn’t see the need to rush or be pushed at all. Everyone had assigned seats (or beds) and there was plenty of time before the train left. We finally made it to the train and were relieved to put our bags down. We opted for the soft sleeper, meaning that we got a bed and were in a room with 4 people in total. Jess and I had the two upper beds which were cheaper and there were two Chinese men who slept below each of us. They didn’t say a word the whole 10 hours to us or each other. We were woken at 6am despite the fact that we had over an hour and a half before we actually arrived in Beijing. I turned over and drifted back to sleep. The room was actually pretty decent. We each had our own personal TV (of course playing movies only in Chinese), our own head lamps. The room had the small table in between the two lower bunks which the two Asian men shared. Jess and I had no option but to sleep with our bags so we both placed them at the end of the beds blocking the TV’s since we couldn’t really watch anything. The room had its own sliding door which could be locked (this was nice for security) as well as a switch to turn off the overhead light. It wasn’t bad for 10 hours, I was glad to get off the train but it was bearable.

We took the subway to our hostel arriving at 8am. Luckily we were able to check in and go right to our room. We were both thrilled to take shower and freshen up. We met the two guys that were would be sharing a room with, Andre who is 22 and from Sweden and Emilio who is 27 and from Colombia I am very surprised by the number of people who are traveling so such long periods of time. Almost everyone I have met has a minimal of a month that they are traveling for, most have 3 months (and these are young people, not older people who are retired). I am starting to believe that more people in the world have similar ideas about the importance of traveling and the need to leave work behind and travel for significant periods of time. Yay!

Jess and I walked around Shanghai all day, which was much needed after being cooped up on the train for 10 hours. Shanghai is much more metropolitan than Beijing and has a lot less culture and historical sites. The buildings and architecture here is amazing, Bill would love it. The whole city seems to be under construction. Almost every single road is being redone and new things are going up left and right. Shanghai is the hosting some kind of Expo in 2010 and there are signs everywhere that say “Better City. Better Life” with a cute blue cartoon character (I enjoyed taking my picture with him several times).

I think the city will be a completely different place in just a few years, it would be interesting to see the changes and progressions that occur.

On our walk we ventured to Old Town first, which was fascinating with many old temples that have been turned into little restaurants and shops. There is a small pond and gardens in the middle of Old Town with a bridge that zig zags over the pond.

 

It was fu n to walk around because the road was closed off to car traffic and there was lots of quaint little shops- was definitely my favorite part of Shanghai. After our time in Old Town we grabbed a little lunch I had some kind of soup with noodles and beef, it was okay. Andre was nice enough to lend us his guide book for the day so we followed the walking tour guide of the French Concession area for a while. I felt like I was in Europe for a bit.
At this point we were both getting tired. We decided that it was time to go to the markets for some shopping before we both fell asleep. We had a little bit of trouble explaining to people where we were trying to go, but quickly learned that in English all we needed to say was “Fake Market“ and everyone would know exactly where we were headed. The market was a little disappointing after Beijing. It didn’t have many of the LongChamp bags that we were looking for. We both were tired and decided to cut our losses and head back to the hostel for a much needed nap.

Upon arriving at the hostel we decided to book our train tickets to Hong Kong. We planning on having two nights in Shanghai and leaving on a sleeping train on the 30th and arriving in Hong Kong during the day of the 31st, clearly so we wouldn’t miss Halloween. The lady at the front desk called to book our tickets and we quickly found out that there were no trains to Hong Kong on the 30th (contrarily to what is said online when we were planning our trip this summer- and what it still says to this day online). We decided that we saw all of what we really wanted to see in Shanghai and that if we had extra time in Hong Kong we’d be able to spend a day or two in Macau so we decided to shorten our stay in Shanghai and leave on the 29th, especially because we did not want to be stuck on a train all night on Halloween. We also found out that there are no express trains from Shanghai to Hong Kong like the one we took from Beijing, and that it is an 18 hour ride! The soft sleeper beds were expensive so we got the cheapest; the hard sleeper,. Hard sleeper means that the room is a bit smaller and 6 people share it, three bunk beds on each side.

Since our time in Shanghai was going to be cut short we decided to live it up and go out that night (Shanghai is supposed to have great nightlife). We had dinner with Emilio and Andre.

We decided to share the dishes and ordered the famous Peking Duck, a squid and octopus dish, and noodles. I tried everything but mostly stuck to the noodles, which are incredibly hard to eat with chopsticks. We read online that there were a few bars in this one area that had great deals on Wednesday nights so we went to check them out. We arrived at the first bar at 8:30PM and there was not a sole in the whole place, so we quickly relocated. The second bar was pretty empty but advertised buy one get one free drinks

. We got a secluded booth and enjoyed each other company talking about our travels and home. When the time came to get our second free drink at the bar we were all shocked by the 3 western looking men who were clearly hitting on Chinese employees who seem to be encouraging them. We quickly finished our second drinks and decided to relocate. The next bar advertised buy a Corona and get a free tequila shot, so we decided to give it a try.

 

We were shocked to discover the same thing happening at this bar. There was even a dad playing pool with two Chinese women and his son who was no more than 12 years old. One of the Chinese women appeared to be entertaining/distracting the little boy so the other Chinese women could flirt with the dad, her bra was clearly showing. I was outraged and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The four of us made the best of it, watching what was going on in shock. We finished our drinks and decided it was time to switch to a different area in town. We headed to another club that we had heard about online called M2. Here was the first normal place, we danced the night away! The club had a promotion going, 10 drinks for 100rmb ($12USD) so we all split the drinks, it worked out well. The four of us had such a fun time and we ended up staying up til almost 3:30am!! We were all very tired the next morning.

Since we had done all of the sight seeing that we had wanted to do we enjoyed sleeping in. We got up at 10am and slowly got ready for the day and packed our bags. We checked out of our room and put our bags downstairs. Jess and I have both decided that our bags are too big and filled with stuff that we don’t need. We decided that we should do most of our gift buying in Shanghai because the prices are the best and send a box home. We felt refreshed and were ready to haggle and get some good prices. We went to the market that was located under the Science and Technology museum underground at the subway stop, this was recommended to us by my friend Ami in Japan, and she was right, the best prices were to be found here. We found lots of LongChamp bags and had fun bargaining with the Chinese ladies to get a good price.

We had lunch at the Latin Café that had a Brazilian Steakhouse. Jess and I both got the chicken club which were delicious. It was nice to have some regular food that we are used to for a change. We’ve really lucked with weather on this trip. Beijing was really the only cold city, but even still it was bearable since it was only a couple of days. Shanghai had beautiful weather the whole time we were there, not too hot , not too cold, we didn’t even need a sweatshirt most of the time. After getting a lot of gifts and things at the market we knew that we needed to lighten our load and so we went back to the hostel and grabbed the stuff we didn’t want anymore as well as our new purchases and headed to the post office.

The two of us made quite a scene as we walked down the street with shopping bags and boxes filled with stuff. The directions that they gave us at the hostel ended up being wrong which was irritating especially because the stuff was heavy and at this point we were pressed for time. We used my “visual translator” book to show people pictures of a post office along the way and eventually found where we were going- that book was the best $15USD that I’ve spent so far on this trip, its been so helpful! Thank goodness there was a guy at the post office who spoke a little English and could help us ship things home. However, he insisted on checking everything that we shipped home! Everything of mine passed inspection, I think because I had hidden some things in my new Ugg boots so they wouldn’t break. Jess wasn’t allowed to ship her bottles of OPI nail polish (I had 3 bottles hidden). Went we finally finished filling out the numerous forms and picking which shipping option we wanted it came time to pay. We had both planned on paying with a credit cards because we didn’t want to take out any more Chinese money, of course the post office only took cash. I had to make a mad dash to the closest ATM (which was very very far away) and make a withdrawal. I had to sprint back because the post office was closing in less than 10 minutes and we only had 25 minutes to grab dinner and grab our bags before we wanted to head to the train station. I ended up grabbing a sub at subway and we stopped at the convenience store to stock up on water for our long journey. We grabbed our bags and hopped in a cab and said our goodbyes to China.

The Shanghai bus terminal is set up much better than the one in Beijing. Since we were leaving the country we had to clear customs which was surprisingly easy. We got the Chinese stamps and filled out our departure cards and were able to walk right on the train, no lines, no pushing, no nothing. We were shocked when we got inside the train. Its clear that the soft sleeping is “first class” and we are definitely in “coach” with our hard sleeper. The space between the bunks is no more than 3 feet, making it impossible to even sit up straight.

 

 

We’re sharing the room with 4 other Chinese people who don’t speak a word of English and have enjoyed laughing at us as we struggle to make our way to our top bunks. The bed so high off the ground. Its really tough to get up and down without stepping on other peoples beds. I am praying that I don’t have to use the bathroom at all between here and Hong Kong, it’s going to be a long 18 hours! Well off to bed.

Love,
Katie