Day 9 & 10 - Shanghai Fun - 1

Day 9 Started with a monumental sleep in, with a bit of a hangover from the both of us.

When we left, the first port of call was Jing'an Temple. This is an active temple in the middle of the city, with a large congregation of monks living in house.

Upon arrival, the first think you see is, everyone throwing their coins up at the pot (below) to get their money to land inside, as if you get it in, good luck will remain, as you can imagine, we both spent a long long time at this.

We walked around the temple some more and saw some amazing statues and altars to Buddha. The most famous point of this temple is the gold, and you can see these below.

Just as we were about to leave, we heard some noise and the monks came out to sing and bless the boxes of prayers, which was burnt after their blessings

After this, I took my first visit to the smaller dodgy market in Shanghai. This place was full of anything you could imagine. Firstly I went into one stall to look at some sunglasses and I finally found the pair I wanted, so the fun started! I asked how much, and all they said was 360RMB, I ended up leaving paying 50RMB, so I was happy with the result.

We walked around and you could get any thing you wanted for any phone  (as we learnt except for the popular Chinese make Shaumi). We carried on walking around with not much else taking our fancy, out of the phones, extras, clothes, watches, belts, tack and shoes.

When we were walking by one stand, one seller asked if I wanted a Rolex, which was new as everyone offered a smart watch (even though I was wearing a genuine one!!), but I thought what the hell, let’s have a look. He then said there at my shop, and asked to follow him, a bit strange but we followed, then he went down a back alley to an elevator. Both me and Katrina said to each other that this seemed a bit dodgy. So I said to the seller, no thanks, we expected it to be on this floor so we wont take a look. He kept on pestering and didn’t get this hint, which is strange as I normally lay on my hints pretty heavily. We left him standing and left to go towards the Nanjing Street.

Nanjing street is the popular shopping street, this would be closely linked to Oxford Street, Regents Street or Rodeo Drive. As you can imagine in a country of over 1billion people. This was a good experience to walk down, and experience a true crowd of people, more then I’ve encountered before.

Once through Nanjing Street, we made it to the Bund. This is the promenade on the river, overlooking the famous Pudong Skyline. I have been taking of this Skyline for a while and it was amazing to see. The is a famous picture of the below scene in 2000. Where there were no skyscrapers just a few small properties and farmland. In 15 years everything you see below came to life. 

After this we went to the Yuyuan Mall. This is one of the only malls built in the ancient Chinese design. We had a wander to see what was about. The first aim was to visit the famous dumpling store, when we arrive the que was around the block, as it’s a Saturday night we thought we would come back in the week when its quieter.

We instead found a little food shop and selected our choices for the meal. Katrina chose some dumplings, with, what we thought was Prawn inside. And a soft dough food with a Pork filling. My first selection, was what I thought was chicken in a sauce, Katrina taught me the fact that it was chicken feet, so I passed on that. Instead picking the brown rice in Pancake bowls. The dumplings were strange, and left. The rest were devoured, and the soft dough items were so good, I got up and got some more. This was a delicious choice.

After the food we had a walk through the market and saw a chopstick store. I wanted to get a chopstick set for my new house, so I was eager to go in.

Inside there were many choices from 20RMB to 2000RMB, however the type I wanted was approx 150-200RMB. I decided I would see what I can find at the markets. Katrina did but a set of sticks for her friends though, which was a great set and I should of also got some for a gift for a friend too.

After this, we headed back to the flat for some much needed rest after a busy day of walking.

Day 10

Today, we left early and headed towards Lao Wai Pu (Foreigner Street). Upon arriving the first thing you see is a big train at the start of the street, this is the site of the old Shanghai train station. With the train being 101 from the Mao Tse Tung train route. This train only operated from Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai.

We went into the street, which has cuisine from all nations, we walked the whole street to see what was on offer, there was only one choice. Once restaurant was packed full to the rafters whilst everyone else was quiet.

It was clear why it was busy, the breakfast was amazing, I had chocolate chip pancakes, with scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. I thought I was back in the US again, eating their brekkie  treats at Dennys.

After this, we took a visit to the market over the road from Lao Wai Street. This was smaller than yesterday’s market, but had other options. I went to the sunglasses stand early one and saw another pair that I liked. This time I left paying 40RMB.

Next we walked down and Katrina was looking at some handbags, whilst I was looking for my Chopsticks. Both had some good bartering and got the deals that we were both happy with.

After we left the market we took the train to Pudong, we were going to the top of the World Finance Centre, the building that looks like a bottle opener. This has 101 floors in the building.

You have 2, little known, choices at the centre. The first is, go to the observation deck on the 94^th floor for 180RMB or visit the Park Hyatts bar on the 92^nd floor, for the price of the drinks. This was a no brainer.

We went to the Hyatt Bar, ordered 2 beers (at 90RMB each) and found an empty table by the window, we were setup for sunset.

The picture may appear that there are clouds, but if you look at me at the bottom, you can see its clear skies. The distortion is the famous pollution that hangs over Chinese cities.

I will leave you to saviour the amazing views.

Day 8 – Travel Day and Shanghai in the evening

We’ll today I fly to Shanghai, this update is actually being typed in the departure lounge of the airport. It’s a crazily hot one, whoever created an all glass airport with poor air con should be sacked, especially as its 28 degrees today!

This morning, I went for one last walk around Xi’an and on the hunt for a new pair of sunglasses. (The people that travel with me, know I have a habit of losing sunglasses on every trip I go on).

Being In China, I thought how about get a good quality fake pair, so I headed back to the Muslim Quarter this morning. I went back in, and as usual the fake ones were of low quality.

I did read of the better quality sunglasses and watches to be hidden away, but in this area I could not see where. The one of the stalls said to me, “we have better quality in the back”. I thought perfect. I walked inside and there was just bags, then I thought another scam to get a tourist in. Then the women moved one of the shelves and opened a secret door.

I must admit, at first I did think, am I going to get killed here, then I walked in and it was the mysterious high quality fakes. I have never seen such good quality before. Unfortunately I need a specific type of sunglasses to work on my face, which they didn’t have.

They also showed me the watches they had, again excellent quality, but as I just got my GPS watch, I didn’t need another.

I went for another wander around the town, and at 1pm I headed towards back to the hotel, picked up my luggage and headed towards the airport.

The guide books say the local airports are quite crazy, so you need to be here very early before your flight (2hrs), well I think that should be rewritten, I walked in, I went to the, (probably the reason) the first class section, I had my boarding pass in 2 minutes and went straight through the private security line.

It’s 15:30 here so just over an hour to my flight on Hainan Airlines HU7645. So I better get a drink and relax before the next fight. Enjoy your day guys!

Post Flight:

The flight was very good, a much higher standard than I expected to travel in China on a domestic flight, even the in flight meal was 5 courses… take a look for yourself!

Upon decent I could get some snaps of Shanghai from the sky and the busy water traffic

Once landed we taxied into the terminal, and I was nearly sick on the way in, I saw the Man City plane, disgusting, that thing shouldn't have its air operating licence!

I met with Katrina my cousin and we took the famous Maglev train into the city, this is the train that is suspended in the air using magnets, as it doesn’t touch the ground there is no friction and it can get upto 430km per hour, but in the even it is slowed down to only 300!

We got to the flat, I freshened up and we went out for dinner, finally some western food. I was in complete and utter shock, after being in the other parts of China for the last week, I’ve got used to the “backward” word, then walking into the Shanghai Brewery it seemed like I was in the Brewery Tap in Peterborough.

First Beer was drank with celebration.

Then we went down to, I can’t believe I’m typing this about China… Bar Street! Which was absolutely full of westerners, normally when you see a westerner in other parts of the country, you give each other a nod, as it is a rare occurrence,  it took a while for the shock to hit me.

We visited a few bars, and finished in the Bearded Bear, which was it’s opening night and it was a German Beer Bar. We have happily say these two beers and the last beers sold on their opening night.

Shanghai I can already see, will be a lot different to the rest of China, so I am looking forward to this adventure.

Day 7 - Xi'an City Walls, A Bike Crash (Me), The Muslim Quarter and Chill Out Time!

We’ll this was another relaxed morning to catch up on my sleep, I ended sleeping for over 14hours in total, I must have been worn out!

When I did get myself out, the first visit of the day was to the City Walls of Xi’an.

City Walls

The city walls were first built in 194BC, but these have since been replaced. The ones I visited today were built in 1370 in the Ming Dynasty.

The walls are 12 metres above street level and is approx 9-10 miles to complete one circuit around (my watch said it was 9.19miles but that did include my walking around some of the towers). You can access the walls at any of the ancient gates in the daytime, where tickets to access are 54RMB.

I remember my cousin telling me that you could cycle on the wall, but I didn’t see anything when I got there. When I climbed to the top, I did see people with bikes and thought, aha it must be around somewhere, very quickly I saw it and hired my bike for the walls!

I started my journey around and the first stop would obviously be one of the gate towers, there were built high up as the top floor exclusively was reserved for archers to stop invasions. The front had 4 and the sides had 3 bow and arrow windows!

The corners held the corner fortresses again for archers to protect from the corners from the walls.

The walls themselves are pretty thick as you can see, they ate 15Mtrs wide at the base!

Just a quarter of the way around, I came across a local girl, who clearly had her first time on a bike, just cycle right into me, she hired it, got on it, not looked around and cycled into me when leaving the hire place. Bad news for you guys, I was ok, but the handlebar was a bit bent! The girl had to pay the repairs as it happened in front of the hire people so she couldn’t argue it.

Here she is anyway! When the rental guy is checking her bike as well.

I carried on around the wall for a bit…

Then I heard some noise and saw some local entertainment. The US culture at the moment seems to be street dancing, but no, not in China. They have street skipping competitions.

I carried on around the wall and enjoyed every minute of it, amazing views on a UNESCO heritage site.

This is my GPS results of the cycle.

Muslim Quarter

My next stop was to the famous Muslim Quarter in Xi’an. Xi’an was the first city to introduce Islam to China, it still holds a huge population. This was introduced, as when the Silk road was being used, the end of the journey was Xi’an, the then former capital of China.

Many of the traders from the middle east would meet local women, get married and the rest is history. As it became quite popular Emperor Gaozing officially allowed Islam to be practiced in China in 651AD. I will update more info on this upon my return.

Currently the Muslim quarter is the home to the best street markets, restaurants, 20 mosques and the China that everyone thinks of when they read about it.

When first arriving this was my view, the first thing I thought was cool.

Then I started walking around, its not very often you see an man sharpening a knife in the middle of the street, or a chef cooking his food with a cigarette hangout out of his mouth.

I walked around more; seen some amazing sights, hearing some crazy noises of the street sellers, out shouting each other to get the sales.

Next I went to visit the great Mosque, this is found the easiest as I was actually able to communicate to the locals in my pigeon Arabic, instead of my none existent Mandarin.

The Mosque was very cool, giving a nice mix of Islam and ancient Chinese culture in one. It was built in 742AD, it takes an area over 12,000Sq Mtrs.

It was split over 4 sections, giving different courtyards for each part.

The pictures explain it all, I will give more info on my return home.

Dinner Time and Wind Down

We’ll I was looking for a restaurant that my cousin had recommended to me, but I could find it.

I found a local place which was quite busy so I headed in.

Looking through the menu (well the pictures) I picked out two items, which appeared to be Sweet and Sour Pork and Egg Fried Noodles, a different world to what we have at home.

The best part, all of that was only 52RMB (£5.50).

On the walk to the hotel, I did see the classic street dancing, so i got a sneaky snap.

After that I went back to my hotel, and for some crazy reason, the pool is open till 4am. So I went for a nice swim and relaxation time, as it was well overdue.

Tomorrow: There may not be an update, I’ll have another wonder in the am and in the afternoon I’m flying to Shanghai to see my cousin!