World's Fastest Train

[Sorry the big photos are the only ones that still format correctly so that's all I'm going to use until it's fixed]

After the previous night's free beer and cheap Schofferhofer we were up a little later than planned, but we were still on time for the full-speed maglev. When we waited longer than expected for our train, it seemed like our return journey was probably going to be at the slower speed, but at least we were going to get one journey at 430km/h. It was absolutely fantastic! And the highest speed according to the display was actualy 431km/h which it hovered around for about half of the journey before starting to decellerate again. China really is the future, unlike India. And it blew away Japan's puny Nozomi! Everything in China is bigger, cheaper, better, and faster than Japan. During the acceleration phase I felt my stomach rising up into my throat. It was so smooth but noticeably extremely fast: cars on the motorway below us whooshed backwards past us.

Waiting to go

Full speed!

The world whizzing by

When we arrived at the airport 30km away just seven minutes later, we just got off the train and straight back on for the slower return journey. The timing is clearly a bit grey because the return journey was actually at full speed as well. I can't explain how much I enjoyed it. It's exactly the sort of thing I would love as a child, so I've obviously not changed much. Afterwards Joanne seemed quite excited too and admitted that she had surprised herself by really enjoying it too.

The French Concession

Next up was the French Concession. The guide book said it was like being in France, but that was quite an exaggeration. It did seem more European, but the Bund had already seemed quite European, and I'm sure both districts have large ex-pat communities as there are plenty of drinking venues that look like ex-pat places. The most French thing I saw were the trees lining most of the streets in the area, which I thought looked like the sort of tree they might us to line an avenue in France. There were lots of art shops, but that's not exactly French is it? We had hoped to find a cheese shop, but had no luck there.

Kittens outside the hostel

Back at the hostel we prepared for our night out, but some more detailed searching online revealed that the drink-all-you-can deals only run on certain nights and our last night in Shanghai was probably the one with the worst choice of all the nights we stayed there. The choice came down to a place offering five free drinks to women (it was ladies' night in many places) and 100 Yuan for men to drink as much as they want, versus a night called “Cheap Enough For You?” where the drinks were all 10 Yuan all night. The first choice would have won out easily, but it was also a hip hop night and we didn't think we'd be able to get drunk fast enough to tolerate the music longer than about ten minutes, so we settled for the second option as our big night our in Shanghai. It was a small place in the French Concession and clearly an ex-pat crowd who all knew each other. We succeeded in getting drunk, but it really wasn't the big night out I'd been hoping for. It was too quiet and everyone else there obviously went every Tuesday.

The In Crowd at "Cheap Enough For You?"

The following morning we made one last trip to the Bund to use the last two free beer vouchers to help soothe our hangovers. Pleased that we got full value from the bizarre two-for-one offer we headed off to catch the train to Hangzhou.

Another amusing sign

written by

The Happy Couple on July 29, 2009 from Shanghai, China

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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