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.