Shanghai, there we went!
We arrived in Shanghai at about 12:00 midnight. Luckily for us, Lisa booked us a hotel that was very near to the airport so we could just crash for the night and make our way into the city in the morning. The hotel was a lot cleaner looking than any of the other hotel we had stayed at so we were some what relieved. Then Lisa found some bugs and cursed the whole country of China.
We had planned to get up early and head into the actual city but we ended up sleeping in a little and missed the breakfast buffet they were advertising downstairs. Well as long as we got into the city then we for sure thought that we would be ok. I mean we did survive Beijing and Xi’an.
We got a taxi and got directions to our last hotel in China. It turns out that there are 2 airports in Shanghai and we landed in the international one that happens to be about an hour outside the main city. I guess it was ok since the cab guy knew exactly where he was going to go. Anyway the ride into town was very peaceful and uneventful. But we did notice that the air was a little cooler and clearer than the China we had seen so far. As we went over a bridge we saw the city and it looked like New York when TV shows do a fly over going away from the Statue of Liberty. Sky Scrappers, towers, and huge buildings covered the sky line. We were finally in civilization! We passed parks, malls, stores, and governmental buildings and it felt like home.
Then there was our hotel, I mean hostel. Lisa had booked us a hostel that was no more than 2 years old. It was very new and very pleasing to the eye. The color scheme was well planned and every wall had mirrors and/or glass. The hallway where we walked to our rooms looked very clean and uniform. The rooms were also very luxurious with two double beds put together, an all glass bathroom, TV, and air conditioning. It even had a refrigerator and a microwave. Going back to the all glass the bathroom. Like I said it was all glass. You could see people taking a shit, taking a shower, or anything else you would be doing in a bathroom. The shower wall was facing the bed so if you pulled the blinds up it was kind of like your very own peep show. Kind of cool I guess. The door was even a giant plate of glass with a handle. If someone were to take a shit that person could watch TV because all the walls were glass and you could easily see into the bedroom. Pretty crazy huh?
There were a few things we had planned to do while in Shanghai. One was to go shopping, find a tailor, see the Famous Bund waterfront, and eat good foods. We pretty much got to all of them except finding the tailor. Anyway the first night we went to The Bund. It’s kind of like the boardwalk in California where they stores and shops and you can enjoy a peaceful walk along the water. That didn’t happen. The Bund in Shanghai was PACKED! There were so much people that certain walkways were only made to go one way. We were trying to find a famous road that had stores on both sides for about a mile that intersected this waterfront walk. It’s kind of like walking down Waikiki on Kalakaua Ave. We eventually just followed the crowd and we were on our way. They had a lot of shops and stuff but nothing really worth buying. The stores I felt like were not geared towards tourists or residents of Shanghai. But then again I guess we were a little jaded seeing Beijing and Xi’an.
This is a picture of Shanghai's Pudong area with the Famous Pearl TV Tower.
We had a good stroll all the way to the end and decided that we wanted to go to the famous Shanghai TV Tower located on the opposite side of The Bund. You could get to the new man made peninsula by bridge or catch a tram that went under the river. We chose the tram. And in the tram “station” there were having some exhibits and exhibitions so we decided to check those out too. One was the story of some prehistoric fish that lives in the area and the protection of it. We basically walked around looking at aquariums with goldfish in them. We were not impressed at all, but hey it was China. Then there was a Chinese Sex history exhibition that looked promising but it was just a bunch of ceramic, porcelain, bronze, wood, and pictures of phallic objects. Sometimes they were really graphic and other times it just looked like a “stick.” It was pretty interesting though, they even had a donkey saddle with a “piece” sticking up in which they made adulterous women “ride” when they were caught. At least it was a lot more interesting than the fish tanks of goldfish. We had some time to check out this sound exhibit but since it was getting late we decided that we go to the Pearl TV Tower first and some shots of the city at night. Big Mistake…
This is a shot of the French Cosession and Nan Jing Road area from the very top of the TV Tower.
It turns out that the reason China’s tourist attractions are so crowded because the Chinese have the same Golden Week holiday as we do. So all these people were Chinese tourists! That meant the tower was PACKED!! The Pearl Tower had 3 observation decks and you needed to buy a ticket to go to each deck. But if you bought all three at the same time you would save some money. They take you to the highest deck first and you make your way down on your pace. But the thing is that you need to catch three different elevators to get to the very top. And each elevator was a crazy ass wait. When we finally got to the top the view, it wasn’t all that great and all the time we had spent getting up there was just a reminder on how it would be going back down. I guess it wasn’t all that bad because we had a Japanese couple behind us and they were complaining about the Chinese people pushing and how ridiculous the lion was. This was exactly what we were bitching about too! We decided to make friends while we waited in line after line. Another thing that was entertaining us was a little girl behind the Japanese couple that was trying her best to “cut” in line. Every little opening she got she tried to squeeze through. So naturally the guy in front would be frustrated. What’s worse is that she was holding her mother’s hand and every time she tried to go forward she was trying to bring her mother too. And did the mother say anything? NOPE! She was practically encouraging the little brat to keep moving forward. And Lisa did a very good job in keeping the girl behind us… with her behind. Anyway you can imagine how going down was like….
After we got back down the tower we went to see the last exhibit about sound but it turns out to be a big dark room with a giant dining table with headphones. They close the door behind you can you just listen to all the scary sounds. But the freaky thing was that it was pitch dark and your eyes never get adjusted to the dark. They had like a door creaking, footsteps, glass breaking, and even some women/ghost whispering in your ear, and the finale was a bunch of kids giggling that I’m sure sounded normal but because of the setting they sound very demonic. Lisa and Krystal got scared so they took the head phones off and just sat in the dark. I guess it was supposed to be scary because one of the kids started to cry and the worker guy opened the door and took him out. It totally ruined the whole effect of the “haunted room.”
Oh I forgot to talk about the Tram ride. So anyway we caught a tram that took us from one side of the Bund to the other. So basically it’s a tunnel that you go through and to make it an attraction they made the ram go really slow and out lights inside the tunnel. It was kind of like a light show. But the funniest part was the English voice over guy that would explain to you what you were supposed to feel. Imagine someone trying to explain to you that a painting is supposed to make you feel cool so they used words like refreshing, water, ice, snow, winter, breeze, and any other words that may put an image in your mind about that’s how you were supposed to feel while looking at the painting. This tunnel was just like that. We go through something twinklely and it says “Twinkling Stars”. Next was “Time Tunnel, Acidic Magma, Water Culture, Meteor Showers, and so on. I can’t remember exactly what they said but it was pretty much like how I said before. Anyway that was the first night.
The second day we found a place that was kind of like the flea market but enclosed liked that shopping area we went to in Beijing. And of course you were able to haggle. The type of merchandise was similar to the stuff in Beijing but this was more of the knock off stuff. Anyway, anywhere you walked there were people asking if you wanted a bag, watch, or DVDs. The weird thing was that I was willing to buy DVDs but hadn’t heard them until like the 20th person asked. I guess I just started tuning out when they said, “Do you need bag?” But anyway I wanted more DVDs so I said yes to this one guy and he led me to his shop. It turns out that his main item was shirts but out from under a counter he pulls out baskets and baskets of DVDs. And he had me and Lisa go through almost his whole stack before we stopped him and haggled for a price. Together Lisa and I bought 32 DVDs. It was awesome! I only took about 11 but Lisa went crazy and bought 21! The rest of time was spent looking for omiyage and clothes for Lisa and Krystal.
For dinner we took the advise of the Lonely Planet book and went to nice place called 1221. It was an ordeal trying to get there because the book doesn’t really tell you directions. So we had the front desk people at the hostel call for us and write the directions in Chinese for the cab driver. Something was wrong with the directions because after giving it to the cab driver he would not stop talking. Even after repeated attempts at “NO CHINESE” this guy thought I had to be Chinese. Then at one point he gave up and turned in the back seat to look at Lisa and Krystal. Lisa responded with a nervous “No Chinese” as well and the dude finally got the hint and stopped asking us questions.
Anyway the restaurant we went to was pretty awesome. The food there was so good and rivaled the awesome place we went to in Beijing. We had roast duck, fried rice, and all the Chinese family style dinner fixin’s. One of the cool things was the guy that came around serving tea did so out of a pot that had a spout that was like 3 feet long! It was crazy! He had this pose where he just let the hot water flow from across the table. Dessert was very impressive as well. Krystal ordered watermelon where the rines were already cut off and seeded. And Lisa ordered a pineapple sherbet that came in a half frozen pineapple. It was pretty good and I though that it was better than Dole Whip. Krystal disagrees.
This is the restaurant that was reccoemnded by the Lonely Planet. It was well worth all the trouble of getting there.
After dinner we were about to hail a cab when we saw a massage place. We haven’t gotten a real massage in China yet so this was going to be it. Because we had just eaten, we decided just to get the foot treatment and it was great. I could have easily fallen asleep but the thought that some lady was touching my feet keep me from going under. After the hour it felt like I was walking on cloud shoes. The foot massage was well worth the wait. We even thought about staying longer to get the full body treatment but they had already stopped for the day so we said we would come back the next day. And we did.
The last day in Shanghai and China was a chill day. It seemed that all the good weather we were having just about run out because it was humid and overcast. We wanted to check out this French Concession place with old architecture but it turns out that we walked around the same area the first night in Shanghai. We even got a chance to check out the Shanghai museum. There was a lot of stuff to see there and was a good detour out of the humidity. They had a special art exhibit from some guy that I can’t remember as well as an exhibition of precious stones collection from the guy that started Apple. The museum was pretty cool and we spent most of the whole afternoon there. After the museum, Lisa wanted to do more shopping so we headed over to the marketplace again for some last minute shopping. We were going to go to another Chinese restaurant but decided to go to Pizza Hut instead. We’ve been seeing it all over China and wanted to find out if it tasted the same or not. And it does.
This is the Shanghai Museum with the crazy architecture. Actually a lot of buildings in Shanghai had werid arichtecture.
After the Pizza Hut dinner we headed back to the massage place to get the full body treatment. What a relaxing experience that was. I think I even heard Lisa or Krystal snore during the massage. Now I know what a massage is supposed to feel like so no more generic ones. We all left on a “down” feeling because the China trip was coming to an end. Lisa actually slept with us the last night in our room to make sure we got up on time. The next morning Krystal and I had to leave the hostel at 6 to get to the airport by 7 to catch our plane by 9. We said our goodbyes to a half awake Lisa and headed back to Japan.
And that was China.
It felt so good coming back home to Japan. The air was cleaner, people seemed cleaner, and I felt cleaner. We see the Kansai International airport so much that it felt more like home than the Honolulu International airport. It felt good to be back home. Now just a few more weeks than maybe Tokyo Disneyland? Then a few weeks after that, our last flight home.
We had planned to get up early and head into the actual city but we ended up sleeping in a little and missed the breakfast buffet they were advertising downstairs. Well as long as we got into the city then we for sure thought that we would be ok. I mean we did survive Beijing and Xi’an.
We got a taxi and got directions to our last hotel in China. It turns out that there are 2 airports in Shanghai and we landed in the international one that happens to be about an hour outside the main city. I guess it was ok since the cab guy knew exactly where he was going to go. Anyway the ride into town was very peaceful and uneventful. But we did notice that the air was a little cooler and clearer than the China we had seen so far. As we went over a bridge we saw the city and it looked like New York when TV shows do a fly over going away from the Statue of Liberty. Sky Scrappers, towers, and huge buildings covered the sky line. We were finally in civilization! We passed parks, malls, stores, and governmental buildings and it felt like home.
Then there was our hotel, I mean hostel. Lisa had booked us a hostel that was no more than 2 years old. It was very new and very pleasing to the eye. The color scheme was well planned and every wall had mirrors and/or glass. The hallway where we walked to our rooms looked very clean and uniform. The rooms were also very luxurious with two double beds put together, an all glass bathroom, TV, and air conditioning. It even had a refrigerator and a microwave. Going back to the all glass the bathroom. Like I said it was all glass. You could see people taking a shit, taking a shower, or anything else you would be doing in a bathroom. The shower wall was facing the bed so if you pulled the blinds up it was kind of like your very own peep show. Kind of cool I guess. The door was even a giant plate of glass with a handle. If someone were to take a shit that person could watch TV because all the walls were glass and you could easily see into the bedroom. Pretty crazy huh?
There were a few things we had planned to do while in Shanghai. One was to go shopping, find a tailor, see the Famous Bund waterfront, and eat good foods. We pretty much got to all of them except finding the tailor. Anyway the first night we went to The Bund. It’s kind of like the boardwalk in California where they stores and shops and you can enjoy a peaceful walk along the water. That didn’t happen. The Bund in Shanghai was PACKED! There were so much people that certain walkways were only made to go one way. We were trying to find a famous road that had stores on both sides for about a mile that intersected this waterfront walk. It’s kind of like walking down Waikiki on Kalakaua Ave. We eventually just followed the crowd and we were on our way. They had a lot of shops and stuff but nothing really worth buying. The stores I felt like were not geared towards tourists or residents of Shanghai. But then again I guess we were a little jaded seeing Beijing and Xi’an.
This is a picture of Shanghai's Pudong area with the Famous Pearl TV Tower.
We had a good stroll all the way to the end and decided that we wanted to go to the famous Shanghai TV Tower located on the opposite side of The Bund. You could get to the new man made peninsula by bridge or catch a tram that went under the river. We chose the tram. And in the tram “station” there were having some exhibits and exhibitions so we decided to check those out too. One was the story of some prehistoric fish that lives in the area and the protection of it. We basically walked around looking at aquariums with goldfish in them. We were not impressed at all, but hey it was China. Then there was a Chinese Sex history exhibition that looked promising but it was just a bunch of ceramic, porcelain, bronze, wood, and pictures of phallic objects. Sometimes they were really graphic and other times it just looked like a “stick.” It was pretty interesting though, they even had a donkey saddle with a “piece” sticking up in which they made adulterous women “ride” when they were caught. At least it was a lot more interesting than the fish tanks of goldfish. We had some time to check out this sound exhibit but since it was getting late we decided that we go to the Pearl TV Tower first and some shots of the city at night. Big Mistake…
This is a shot of the French Cosession and Nan Jing Road area from the very top of the TV Tower.
It turns out that the reason China’s tourist attractions are so crowded because the Chinese have the same Golden Week holiday as we do. So all these people were Chinese tourists! That meant the tower was PACKED!! The Pearl Tower had 3 observation decks and you needed to buy a ticket to go to each deck. But if you bought all three at the same time you would save some money. They take you to the highest deck first and you make your way down on your pace. But the thing is that you need to catch three different elevators to get to the very top. And each elevator was a crazy ass wait. When we finally got to the top the view, it wasn’t all that great and all the time we had spent getting up there was just a reminder on how it would be going back down. I guess it wasn’t all that bad because we had a Japanese couple behind us and they were complaining about the Chinese people pushing and how ridiculous the lion was. This was exactly what we were bitching about too! We decided to make friends while we waited in line after line. Another thing that was entertaining us was a little girl behind the Japanese couple that was trying her best to “cut” in line. Every little opening she got she tried to squeeze through. So naturally the guy in front would be frustrated. What’s worse is that she was holding her mother’s hand and every time she tried to go forward she was trying to bring her mother too. And did the mother say anything? NOPE! She was practically encouraging the little brat to keep moving forward. And Lisa did a very good job in keeping the girl behind us… with her behind. Anyway you can imagine how going down was like….
After we got back down the tower we went to see the last exhibit about sound but it turns out to be a big dark room with a giant dining table with headphones. They close the door behind you can you just listen to all the scary sounds. But the freaky thing was that it was pitch dark and your eyes never get adjusted to the dark. They had like a door creaking, footsteps, glass breaking, and even some women/ghost whispering in your ear, and the finale was a bunch of kids giggling that I’m sure sounded normal but because of the setting they sound very demonic. Lisa and Krystal got scared so they took the head phones off and just sat in the dark. I guess it was supposed to be scary because one of the kids started to cry and the worker guy opened the door and took him out. It totally ruined the whole effect of the “haunted room.”
Oh I forgot to talk about the Tram ride. So anyway we caught a tram that took us from one side of the Bund to the other. So basically it’s a tunnel that you go through and to make it an attraction they made the ram go really slow and out lights inside the tunnel. It was kind of like a light show. But the funniest part was the English voice over guy that would explain to you what you were supposed to feel. Imagine someone trying to explain to you that a painting is supposed to make you feel cool so they used words like refreshing, water, ice, snow, winter, breeze, and any other words that may put an image in your mind about that’s how you were supposed to feel while looking at the painting. This tunnel was just like that. We go through something twinklely and it says “Twinkling Stars”. Next was “Time Tunnel, Acidic Magma, Water Culture, Meteor Showers, and so on. I can’t remember exactly what they said but it was pretty much like how I said before. Anyway that was the first night.
The second day we found a place that was kind of like the flea market but enclosed liked that shopping area we went to in Beijing. And of course you were able to haggle. The type of merchandise was similar to the stuff in Beijing but this was more of the knock off stuff. Anyway, anywhere you walked there were people asking if you wanted a bag, watch, or DVDs. The weird thing was that I was willing to buy DVDs but hadn’t heard them until like the 20th person asked. I guess I just started tuning out when they said, “Do you need bag?” But anyway I wanted more DVDs so I said yes to this one guy and he led me to his shop. It turns out that his main item was shirts but out from under a counter he pulls out baskets and baskets of DVDs. And he had me and Lisa go through almost his whole stack before we stopped him and haggled for a price. Together Lisa and I bought 32 DVDs. It was awesome! I only took about 11 but Lisa went crazy and bought 21! The rest of time was spent looking for omiyage and clothes for Lisa and Krystal.
For dinner we took the advise of the Lonely Planet book and went to nice place called 1221. It was an ordeal trying to get there because the book doesn’t really tell you directions. So we had the front desk people at the hostel call for us and write the directions in Chinese for the cab driver. Something was wrong with the directions because after giving it to the cab driver he would not stop talking. Even after repeated attempts at “NO CHINESE” this guy thought I had to be Chinese. Then at one point he gave up and turned in the back seat to look at Lisa and Krystal. Lisa responded with a nervous “No Chinese” as well and the dude finally got the hint and stopped asking us questions.
Anyway the restaurant we went to was pretty awesome. The food there was so good and rivaled the awesome place we went to in Beijing. We had roast duck, fried rice, and all the Chinese family style dinner fixin’s. One of the cool things was the guy that came around serving tea did so out of a pot that had a spout that was like 3 feet long! It was crazy! He had this pose where he just let the hot water flow from across the table. Dessert was very impressive as well. Krystal ordered watermelon where the rines were already cut off and seeded. And Lisa ordered a pineapple sherbet that came in a half frozen pineapple. It was pretty good and I though that it was better than Dole Whip. Krystal disagrees.
This is the restaurant that was reccoemnded by the Lonely Planet. It was well worth all the trouble of getting there.
After dinner we were about to hail a cab when we saw a massage place. We haven’t gotten a real massage in China yet so this was going to be it. Because we had just eaten, we decided just to get the foot treatment and it was great. I could have easily fallen asleep but the thought that some lady was touching my feet keep me from going under. After the hour it felt like I was walking on cloud shoes. The foot massage was well worth the wait. We even thought about staying longer to get the full body treatment but they had already stopped for the day so we said we would come back the next day. And we did.
The last day in Shanghai and China was a chill day. It seemed that all the good weather we were having just about run out because it was humid and overcast. We wanted to check out this French Concession place with old architecture but it turns out that we walked around the same area the first night in Shanghai. We even got a chance to check out the Shanghai museum. There was a lot of stuff to see there and was a good detour out of the humidity. They had a special art exhibit from some guy that I can’t remember as well as an exhibition of precious stones collection from the guy that started Apple. The museum was pretty cool and we spent most of the whole afternoon there. After the museum, Lisa wanted to do more shopping so we headed over to the marketplace again for some last minute shopping. We were going to go to another Chinese restaurant but decided to go to Pizza Hut instead. We’ve been seeing it all over China and wanted to find out if it tasted the same or not. And it does.
This is the Shanghai Museum with the crazy architecture. Actually a lot of buildings in Shanghai had werid arichtecture.
After the Pizza Hut dinner we headed back to the massage place to get the full body treatment. What a relaxing experience that was. I think I even heard Lisa or Krystal snore during the massage. Now I know what a massage is supposed to feel like so no more generic ones. We all left on a “down” feeling because the China trip was coming to an end. Lisa actually slept with us the last night in our room to make sure we got up on time. The next morning Krystal and I had to leave the hostel at 6 to get to the airport by 7 to catch our plane by 9. We said our goodbyes to a half awake Lisa and headed back to Japan.
And that was China.
It felt so good coming back home to Japan. The air was cleaner, people seemed cleaner, and I felt cleaner. We see the Kansai International airport so much that it felt more like home than the Honolulu International airport. It felt good to be back home. Now just a few more weeks than maybe Tokyo Disneyland? Then a few weeks after that, our last flight home.
posted by Chris at 5:38 AM
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