Shanghai, China

In September, 2005, I (I'm Glenn, in case you just dropped in via a search engine) took a trip to Shanghai. I had miles that were going to expire on United, and my buddy Scott and I wanted to take a trip somewhere, so Shanghai it was. We booked into Shanghai and out of Beijing, which means we had to find our own way up to Beijing. This turned out to be no problem, even pleasant, because China has very nice overnight rail trips with very comfortable sleeper cars between the two cities leaving several times a day.

If you're looking for expert commentary in English on the history and back alleys of Shanghai, you won't find that here, as I only spent a couple of days there and consequently didn't even buy a Lonely Planet. If you would like to read the impressions of a first time visitor and see a few pictures of the city, you've come to the right place.

Before I went to Shanghai I'd seen pictures of the skyline, the most salient feature of which is the Pearl of the Orient Tower. It has two large "pearls" and one small one up at the top. You can buy several types of tickets, including one that stops at all three observation levels and one that takes you to the restaurant. We took in all three levels, but I found that the view from the small 'pearl" at the top isn't much different from the view from the big one below it, yet it is much more cramped. I'd suggest just going to the two large pearls.

To get across the river to the Tower we took what our map had labeled "Sightseeing Tunnel at the Bund." We paid about US$4.00 and went down the escalator to take a railcar ride across while being treated to a light show. It was not unlike a Disneyland attraction. Although we didn't know it at the time, cheaper way over would be to just take the subway over.

All along the waterfront is a wide walkway filled with foreign tourists and Chinese alike having their pictures taken with the skyline behind them. people seeing and being seen. There were also a large number of locals lining the railing on the inland side of the walkway, at left in this picture. I seem to have very little free time, but when I do I would never think of going down by the water in Tokyo and sitting on a railing. In Shanghai, however, there are a lot of people content to do just that.

OK, did we take the time to go up in the Tower? Of course - it was a must.

I'm sure you're wondering how things look from up there, so here you are.

And in case you're wondering how this scene looks from 5,925 feet up in the air, we've got that, too. From that height, the Pearl of the Orient Tower looks like a giant sundail needle.

If you want to see a blowup of this picture, just click it. It will open in a new browser window, so just close the window to come back to this page.

As you can see, these images come to you courtesy of Google Earth. It's a free download, and if you're a geography buff like me I'm sure you'll enjoy taking virtual balloon rides all over the earth.

As I said, we were only in Shanghai for a couple of days and knew the prices had to be reasonable, so we were looking to do some shopping in the markets. However, where were they? You would think that it would be easy to find markets and we thought the Bund area was it, but we didn't see anything looking like a market there. We began asking all the Westerners who didn't look like tourists where the markets were. They pointed us in the direction of Shangxi Road and told us that when touts began approaching us on the sidewalk we were getting close.

After quite a bit of walking, sure enough, people started approaching us with mini photo albums and trying to get us to follow them. My buddy Scott took one of them up and started following, with me bringing up the rear. Soon we were headed into suspicious-looking back alleys and I got wary. When the runner pulled out his cellphone to alert his cohorts I smelled a rat and turned around. A little farther on we found a proper market with open stalls that were more on the up and up.

You've got to bargain for everything in China, and a good rule of thumb is to pay about 1/3 of the original price you're quoted. We found that even in stores with fixed price tags on the merchandise, the kind you wouldn't dream of "making an offer" in in Europe or the US, every price was negotiable. In this picture the shop keeper punches in numbers on a calculator as some French tourists haggle for a discount.

If you're the kind of person who feels uncomfortable bargaining, remember to keep it light. After asking "How much?, counter with a price at maybe 20% of what was quoted. Adding a gag reason like "I didn't bring that much money today" helps, too.

It was really hot that day, and strolling vendors selling cold bottles of water kept walking up to me. The blond lady cautioned me to make sure the bottle caps were sealed, as she said some vendors were not beyond refilling water bottles with tap water and selling them at a nice markup. Here's a frame grab of the water vendor showing me that that seal was indeed unbroken. The lady was all business, but I can detect a faint hint of an amused smile on my lips.

I'm not a big fan of dickering for price, but my buddy Scott was a natural. He spent a lot of time going back and forth with this cute little teenager for some outer wear while I caught the scene on videotape. Here's another frame grab in which I've tried to capture some of the bargaining atmosphere. Scott had keyed his offer into her calculater and her feigned a pained expression on her face and told Scott she needed his "no-joking price" because she "couldn't make any money" at that price.

Shanghai is a chrome and glass sea of Starbucks, Mc Donald's and TCBY shops. My guess is that it will supplant Hong Kong as the financial capital if it hasn't already. With its recent explosive growth, it had us looking for things that might make us feel a bit more like we were in China in short order. We found a "Jade Buddha Temple" marked on our tourist map, so we walked off in search of it. Any large city will have its high rise condos, and a country with the population of China is not likely to be an exception. I liked this little scene with the motorboat cruising down the river.

We visited the Jade Buddha Temple on a sunny Sunday morning, and we found it alive with activity when we arrived. I'll begin with this picture, which presents a good contrast between the temple and the high-rise apartment buildings in the background.

In a scene not too different from what you might find here in Tokyo, a young girl with bows in her hair ties a ribbon on a branch on the temple grounds. On the ribbon is printed the wish she hopes will come true. In Japan, these would be written on white paper instead.

Picking my camera up a bit over the bush, I found this lady praying, joss stick in hand.

You figure sampling the cuisine is a part of every trip overseas, and we certainly were looking forward to it in Shanghai. The first night we went to a huge restarant, must have been 500 people in it, near the train station. Trouble is, in Japan the restaurants have plastic models of their dishes outside, so you can usually get a good idea of what you want to eat beforehand. In this restaurant we were handed menus all in Chinese characters and with few pictures, so we had no idea how to order. With 20-20 hindsight I should have just grabbed the waiter and said "Let's take a walk" and pointed to things that looked good on other people's tables and said "Bring me that." I will next time.

On our second day we entered this restaurant, I think it was Cantonese, and I ordered the shrimp in mango sauce and a Tsingtao (pronounced Ching Dow, as in Dow Jones) beer. The food looked super, and I had my buddy Scott take this happy little picture. That was before I realized the shrimp had not been shelled, and I couldn't see any way around pouring the shrimp over the rice than then dipping my fingers into the goopy sauce to pull them out and shell them one by one, discarding the shells in my rice bowl.

Hover your mouse over the picture at right to see the result. Finger lickin' good?

At the intersection of Shanghai's two main subway lines, you'll find People's Park marked on the tourist map. If you type in "Shanghai" on Google Earth, you'll be taken to People's Park, so it would appear that it is Shanghai's "epicenter." We jumped of the subway there one morning to see what it looked like. What we found was seas of people surrounded by skyscrapers forming the skyline and not too much greenery to break it up. As a result, it would be hard for me to recommend People's Park as a stop to make while in Shanghai. Shinjuku Gyouen in Tokyo is ten times more interesting.

Where did we stay? Wierd story. When we waled out of the Shanghai airport, we started talking to an American guy we saw traveling alone and asked him if he wanted to share taxi fare into town. He did. He had a hotel booked - we didn't - so we just stayed in the cab until it arrived. The cab left, and the guy came out and said the cab had taken him to the wrong hotel, so he left. We saw that the hotel was right by the train station and we had to take the train to Beijing, so we checked it out. It was quite nice and very reasonable - US$30 for the two of us. They originally put us in a smallish room on the street side, so I asked for a room on the other side of the hall. When we entered it, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the new room was twice the size of the old at the same price! Needless to say, we were quite satisfied. The info from the business card I picked up there:

Shanghai Post & Telecommunications Hotel
Tel: 63178888 x 170 (not sure what "x 170" means, but it's probably the extension for reservations)

The address is in Chinese characters only, so I can't print it here. There's not too much of interest around the hotel, but since Shanghai has a subway, we didn't really mind the location. Besides, it's super convenient for train travel, as you'll see below.

Here's an aerial picture from Google showing the proximity of our hotel to Shangai station. We were to pick up our tickets in the lobby of the Holiday Inn from a runner for the agency that sold them to us and then proceed on to the station, and that turned out to be a snap. I've painted a red dot on our hotel. You can clearly see the curved corner of the hotel, its pink color, and the plaza in front of the station that provides the trees in the picture above.

You'll find all types of people in that plaza at night, from homeless to con artists to middle-aged women suggesting massages (the actual masseusses are promised to be much younger) to middle-aged guys like Scott and me.

The night train to Beijing was very nice. As I mentioned at the top, we flew into Shanghai but we left by train. I don't have any great pictures of the inside of the train, but I do have this framegrab off my video of the hallway with its fold-down seats on the walls. It's not a bullet train, as the Shanghai - Beijing run takes a good 12 hours, but it is very comfortable. Inside the doors on the left are the "soft sleeper" compartments; these have three bunks on each side, although they only put three people in our compartment that night. There are also "hard sleeper" cars that are more economical, but I didn't walk around the train with a camera to get a picture of them. Click this link if you'd like more detailed information about the train and how to make reservations.

Well, that was about as deep as we got into Shanghai, and as you can see we only scratched the surface of Shanghai. A co-worker of mine who had a friend living in Shanghai went after me and came back saying that it was quite interesting. Therefore, if you visit China and make Shanghai one of your stops, I suggest you either research the city sufficiently to have enough destinations lined up or don't schedule many days and do an "overview" tour as we did. As for me, I'm thinking I've seen enough of Shanghai to satisfy my curiosity and I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.