Shanghai Part I

We got our 20 hour train from Hong Kong with little delay and arrived in Shanghai on time the following morning. Our hotel is a little out of the city, but the tube means that you're never far from the centre anyway! We headed into the city centre the following morning to see the bright lights of Shanghai. The famous bund and the cityscape are the two most famous views Shanghai can offer and we were very disappointed to see that massive boards have been put up right in front of the bund, so not only can you not get a photo of the city scape across the river, you also cant get a photo of the Bund as you are too close (it's all in aid of renovation of the riverfront for the Shanghai World Expo 2010). Rather disgruntled we crossed the river via the weird and wonderful 'bund sightseeing tunnel', in which you cannot see any of the bund or any sights as the tunnel goes under the river. To make up for the lack of sights, they covered the tunnel in LED lights to make it 'crazy and exciting', like only the Chinese can. Lets just say Chris and I left slightly underwhelmed. Once on the other side of the river we couldn't even see the Bund due to the roadworks going on on the other side, so we gave up and went up the (slightly gaudy as ever) Pearl Tower instead. The view from up there was slightly better, if a little hazy, but we couldn't stay up there for long due to the masses of people! It took us about 15 -20 minutes to get back down as we had to queue for the lift!

We crossed back over the river, where Chris slipped down some steps, as they thought cleaning them by throwing a bucket of water on them would be a safe and practical thing to do. Hes ok, but we got so grumpy then that we gave up and returned back to the hostel. Chris managed to slip again on another wet patch and broke his flip flop, so had to trek back bare foot and buy some more at the other end. Not a good day for Chris et Al!

We tried again yesterday (take II) with slightly more success as we realised we could get a boat across the river. There is no bridge, you can only get the underground, boat or freaky tunnel thing across. Anyway we crossed over the river and got our first shot of the cityscape, which looks pretty impressive. After that we went up The Shanghai World Finiancial Centre, which is the 3rd tallest building in the world and has the worlds highest observation deck (the one on the right)! We stayed up there until it went dark and the lights of Shanghai came on, which we quite impressive. We are surprised at how much of a building site Shanghai is, there are roadworks everywhere and we expect it will look very different in years to come. We got the boat back across the river, eventually got our photo of the bright lights of Shanghai at night and then got the tube back amoungst the masses of people.

We are having a day off today to do washing etc, as Chris has had too much of the crowds! We are going on a day trip tomorrow to Hangzhou!

Hope you are all well
Lots of Love,
Chris and Alex xx