Shanghai... so good we did it twice!

Getting ready for our big night on the town with Clement!

The train ride to Shanghai was a breeze, the train itself was awesome and we slept most of the way there, getting in at around 7 am. Since China has no time zones...yes really it's all one huge time zone, there wasn't too much adjusting to do. We were greeted by rain, got a little bit lost trying to find the hostel in the mean time getting soaked, but we managed to find it and luckily they let us have our room right away. This hostel was more like a hotel with a capacity of probably 300 or more guests staying here, however it seems like the hostel is mostly empty. Once we settled in we started searching for a Chiropractor. After Chad got his nice massage the day before, he did some stretching and pulled something in his neck. It was bad to the point where he couldn't turn his head very well, so off we go in search of a Chiropractor. Trying to get anything done during the time of the Chinese holiday is nearly impossible, the few chiropractors that were available were on holidays until the 13th of October. We made an appointment at an Osteopath, the next best thing. Chad had a very interesting appointment and treatment which included an x-ray, as well as acupuncture and cupping! When in Rome. The cupping was a little painful, what the doctor did is use a round suction instrument to suck out impurities from the affected area, and thereby leaving huge hickies on Chad’s neck in three areas. After that interesting experience we went back to the hostel and relaxed.

The next day was relaxed, trying to recuperate from the neck pain and getting to know the area around our hostel. It was still pouring rain outside, so we didn’t venture too far. We managed to find a grocery store and a little black market. We loaded up on a few DVD’s from the black market (they were only 1.25$) and some fresh fruit and veggies from the grocery store. The store was a Carrefour, which is a large French multinational. It had two levels and was very much like a Real Canadian superstore back home, or one of those Wal-Mart super centers. We shouldn’t have been surprised as Shanghai is a very modern city. In some ways it is more modern and advanced than cities in N. America, but there is still a sharp contrast between the rich and the poor, even more than you would see in a city of N. America. Anyways, this store gave us a chance to stock up on some of the toiletries that had dwindled over the past months and to get more of our pre-trip diet back into us. Raw food is a great change from all the prepared food from restaurants we had been eating at for the past weeks. It seems that most of Asia will not have kitchens in the hostels like they do in Europe. I suppose with food and going out to eat being so cheap, many people wouldn’t see the necessity for kitchens in a hostel.

People! People everywhere, downtown Shanghai

The next day the weather cleared up and we were off! We decided to take one of the river boat cruises that go down the Huangpu river. We took the metro close, and then walked for 2 hours through the French concession and the bund, slowly making our way to the river. When we had first walked out of the metro, we were overwhelmed with the people. It was one of the first ‘Chinese’ experiences. Thousands of people had filled the square and the streets. There were so many people on the sidewalks that they spilled into the streets, and the 4 lane street became only one lane of traffic. We had just said to each other that we hadn’t felt out of place at all in China yet and then we walked out of the metro. The walk around the bund and French concession was a nice little walk, but a little disappointing because the whole area is under a lot of construction in preparation for the upcoming world exposition that is taking place in Shanghai in 2010. It not only mars the view but also makes it quite difficult to get around, but I imagine if the rest of the city is any proof, it will be fantastic once they have the construction completed. We finally found the dock area and had a bit of trouble finding the boat. We ended up in a huge line up for tickets, and only after we had paid 0.5 yuan for a ticket ($0.07 Cdn) we realized that this might not be the boat tour we were thinking of. We figured out after a short moment that it was for a ferry ride across the river. We were approached by a salesman who then led us off in the right direction for the tourist boat rides. We paid 100 yuan each for our hour long boat ride on the river. It was great!

Singapore skyline

The skyline was a little obscured in pollution, but it was amazing to see the skyscrapers that dominated the view. Shanghai is full of buildings stretching for the heavens and at night, until 11pm, most of them are lit up in a dazzling show of lights and colors. There isn’t anything quite like it that we have seen yet!

One of the Shanghai markets...with the huge skyscraper in the background.

After the boat tour we decided to wander around the city for a little while longer. We took a few random, narrow dark alleys and wound up in the middle of an authentic Chinese market. This market put the tourist market of Wanfujing in Beijing to shame. This was the real side of China, with all the sights, sounds and smells you can imagine. There were moments that despite the very strong stomach that we both have, where we weren’t sure we would be able to hold it together. It truly had just about everything you could think of to eat. The conditions weren’t very hygienic, but it was all there for sale. All varieties of seafood, fowl, meat, veggies, fruit, noodles and so much more. We were the only white people for hundreds of meters at the least. There were no tourists in sight, but despite that there were no gawking faces looking back at us. This was the second truly authentic Chinese experience for us! On the far end of the market, after a few twists and turns down residential streets, we happened to pop out on one of the tourist streets and followed that down to a different market. This one was very similar to the ones we had visited in Beijing and we just cruised on through, without stopping too many times. We continued to wander through the streets for a while longer, making our way back to the city center, where we knew that we would be able to find a metro stop.

Spicy, spicy Szechewan food

Along the way we came across a Szechwan restaurant and we figured we would give it a go. We got in, ordered Szechwan beef, a stir fried green bean dish and a bok choy dish. Wow! One of the best meals we’ve had. The green beans were similar to one dish we had before, spicy, salty and great! The bok choy had a spicy smoky flavour that was to die for. The beef, well, the heat was off the scale. We both have a very high tolerance for spicy foods, but this one pushed it to the limits. It was comparable to the ‘bull vs. the volcano’ chicken wings that we have back in Calgary, only we ate an entire platter of it! After our wonderful meal, we were off down the metro back to the hostel. It was now quite late and we knew we had a big day the next day!

The next day we decided to check out the Shanghai museum. We got up a bit late, as we’ve been doing lately, maybe a combination of being worn out, a bit under the weather and just revelling in being able to sleep in, by the time we got to the museum it was close to 1 pm. The line was a bit long and it was super humid and hot, many of the Chinese people were shielding themselves from the sun with umbrellas, hats, sunglasses and sometimes all of the above. We’ve noticed that Chinese women really strive to have pale white skin, we figure that that is why they shield themselves from the sun so much. The amount of commercials that are on TV and in magazines about skin whitening creams and procedures is insane.

Chinese scroll from the national museum

Back to the museum, which is a museum of ancient Chinese art and possesses a collection of 120,000 precious works of art. It has rich and high-quality collection of ancient Chinese bronze, ceramics, painting and calligraphy. Some of the displays are really great. The museum is a little on the small side compared to some of the other great museums we’ve seen (the Louvre, Hermitage etc). We probably spent about 2 hours taking in the art and the Chinese people some of which, as soon as they got in proceeded to sit down right away and take a nap. It’s not a joke, Chinese people sleep whenever they can get a spare minute. At some of the markets we visited the vendors are sleeping at their stall, out cold, I’m sure if you wanted to you could just walk in and out without paying. On the bright side if you are tired of being harassed to buy this or that; ‘I give you good price lady‘, you can seek out those stalls with sleeping vendors and shop in peace.

Going down? From the restaurant on the Grand Hyatt

In the evening we decided to go out with Clement who was now also in Shanghai and have a night out. Our first stop was one of the tallest high-rises in Shanghai - the Jin Mao Tower. It has 93 floors, we went to the 87th floor - the Hyatt Bar and had a very very expensive beer (90 Yuan ~ $15 Cdn) to start our night off. We then were off to three expat bars in Shanghai, it was a great night. Funny thing was that once we were around a lot of westerns it was a bit weird almost uncomfortable. Its funny how easy it is to create your own bubble when the majority of the culture and people around you is so different. The night ended at around 5 am and we had a nice hour cab ride because the driver couldn’t find our hostel. We went to sleep after some convenience store noodle fix and slept until 2pm the next day.

Since the day was half gone when we woke up we did nothing but go and get more cheap dvds and stayed in bed all day long watching movies, it was great. Since we were off to Vietnam soon we decided that the next day, our last day would be spent stocking up on some English books. We managed to find the bookstore with the biggest English book selection (which wasn’t that big but at least had some variety). We walked around more just checking out the city and then headed to the airport to catch our flight which was departing at 10.20pm. The Pudong airport is an hour away from Shanghai and we got a shuttle from our hostel. We were at the airport about 3 hours before the flight and just sat around waiting so that we could check in. The airport is huge! Biggest airport we’ve been in yet, and all bright shiny and new! As we were about to check into our flight (we're already at the airport at this time) and Ewa asks, ‘what is today?’ Well, it's the 6th. Hmmm, well our visa for Vietnam doesn't allow entry into the country until the 8th. Oh cr@p! So, a frantic hour of trying to call embassies, airlines, hotels, and other such places, we managed to change our flight, book a place to stay for the night, for the next two nights in Shanghai, change our hotel arrangements in Hanoi. We now had a flight booked for the 9th and a couple more days to relax in Shanghai.

Some things we noticed in Shanghai but also in China in general is that going to out to eat seems a bit different than back home. People go out to eat as a necessity, they don’t have time and it’s easier. They rarely talk when eating dinner, it’s more like a fast sit down, eat as much as you can, talk as little as possible and get out. The restaurant only gives you one menu per table vs. for each person. We’re not sure why this is, but it takes much longer for us to order because Ewa can never decide what to have and then Chad is just sitting there waiting for the menu, two menus is always much quicker. Another thing is the variety of potato chip flavours, if anyone has ever been to German for example they have beer flavoured chips. Here in China the flavours were: Shrimp, Cucumber, Kiwi, shish kabob, BBQ Chicken, BBQ Beef, and dumpling just to name a few. Ewa’s favourite snack here was Japanese crispy spicy seaweed squares, they were delicious!
The next couple of days we managed to waste away in fine fashion. A trip to a few markets, an attempt to work out a little, eat healthy and get some sleep. Nothing spectacular occurred, but Ewa did manage to get her feet wet with attempting to bargain and to get over the impulse to run when the store owners come hassling. This will probably prove to be more helpful than we realize as we tread deeper into S.E. Asia!

Buddha statue in the Chinese national museum

written by

ECRadventure on October 9, 2009 from Shanghai, China

from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog

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