To our surprise, not one traveller we’ve met had anything positive to say about Shanghai and, as a result, we’d opted to spend most of our time in China in other places and only had one night in Shanghai. The short time we spent there we really enjoyed so a bit of a mistake on hindsight but another excellent reason to go back! We got there very late after unknowingly (and mistakenly!) getting on a local bus rather than an express bus and, as a result, had a very long very drawn-out bus journey on a bus that honked, stopped a lot and eventually trundled its way into Shanghai about 10 hours after setting out from Húang Shān. We spent a large part of the journey trying to work out where we went wrong as we thought we’d got on the right bus! The driver managed to hoick and spit the entire way from Húang Shān to Shanghai, aiming out a partially open window that wore more than what hit the road. We were sitting behind the driver so had excellent seats to watch this display although after 9 hours, we were getting a bit ropey. Where we ended up in Shanghai was surprisingly pleasant and had the odd mix of incredibly modern yet still so old. On one street there were fancy stores and valet parking then a block away there were the small kitchens on the street, people doing their washing the same way as they do in the country and we felt we were almost walking between worlds.
Shanghai at night is superb (no pics though sorry) and even if you’re there only one night, definitely make the effort to get out and see these incredible buildings all lit up. We’re not really into architecture but the buildings looked very different and some were quite funky
and I quite happily moved from taking photos of animals to snapping away at skyscrapers
Some of the buildings almost looked like little building blocks, almost as if you could pick them up and shift them
We spent the day walking to the Bund and around it. The Bund is the old French-inspired quarter of Shanghai and while I had no expectations, Euan did and was slightly disappointed as it wasn’t much to look at and there seemingly wasn’t much there apart from a stretch of buildings like the below
The buildings did hide lovely interiors though but it was a bit hit and miss as to which you could get into. I managed to quickly snap a picture of the interior of this bank while the guards weren’t looking. It was very elaborate with loads of marble and mosaics covering the ceiling.
Another building reminded me of the Royal Exchange in London and had loads of very posh shops on the second floor surrounding the atrium
Needless to say we felt very out of place so figured we might as well make fun of the situation before leaving voluntarily!
We visited the Gallery of modern art - a very odd place
and neither of us thought much of the art that we saw. I mean, a display of cleaning stuff including toilet brushes?? They’ve got to be taking the mickey!!
We found what could possibly be the shortest escalator and went up and down that a few times (no, we weren’t bored but there was a novelty factor as no one was bothering to take the 10 stairs)
and saw a shoe shop on the move (or they’d just robbed a shoe shop)
It was a pretty hazy day but it made for some lovely cloud patterns on our way to the airport
The driver of the bus that we took to the airport was a bit of a maverick. He was calmly cutting up everyone on the motorway, expression not changing, coolly manoeuvring the bus to cut off cars, trucks and basically anything that looked like it was going to overtake him. This should have been our warning that he wasn’t quite normal. We were just coming into the airport and we’d stood up early to get out packs on so we didn’t hold anyone up. We were standing side-on in the aisle waiting for the driver to pull into the terminal when, without any warning and for absolutely no reason, he stomped hard on the brakes and the bus stopped dead in the middle of the road. Everyone in the bus went flying forward but everyone else had a seat in front of them except us. Euan managed to grab hold of the luggage rack and not go very far but I, fuelled by 19kg of pack on my back, went flying sideways (legs going in all directions) right on past him and towards the front of the bus. Euan tried to grab me but I had too much momentum and hurtled on past him. I have no idea how I managed to keep my feet as I was going sideways from the start but I did manage to grab hold of a bar on the front seat and stop myself from hurtling onto the dash and into the front window. No apology from the driver, no change of expression so I did what I thought might make him realise he’d failed in his mission to try and kill us. I laughed and didn’t stop laughing until we were in the terminal but the more we thought about it, the more we realised that it could have been a whole lot worse. Maybe getting up early in buses is not the done thing?! Bus drivers had been fab so far!!
Shanghai at night is superb (no pics though sorry) and even if you’re there only one night, definitely make the effort to get out and see these incredible buildings all lit up. We’re not really into architecture but the buildings looked very different and some were quite funky
and I quite happily moved from taking photos of animals to snapping away at skyscrapers
Some of the buildings almost looked like little building blocks, almost as if you could pick them up and shift them
We spent the day walking to the Bund and around it. The Bund is the old French-inspired quarter of Shanghai and while I had no expectations, Euan did and was slightly disappointed as it wasn’t much to look at and there seemingly wasn’t much there apart from a stretch of buildings like the below
The buildings did hide lovely interiors though but it was a bit hit and miss as to which you could get into. I managed to quickly snap a picture of the interior of this bank while the guards weren’t looking. It was very elaborate with loads of marble and mosaics covering the ceiling.
Another building reminded me of the Royal Exchange in London and had loads of very posh shops on the second floor surrounding the atrium
Needless to say we felt very out of place so figured we might as well make fun of the situation before leaving voluntarily!
We visited the Gallery of modern art - a very odd place
and neither of us thought much of the art that we saw. I mean, a display of cleaning stuff including toilet brushes?? They’ve got to be taking the mickey!!
We found what could possibly be the shortest escalator and went up and down that a few times (no, we weren’t bored but there was a novelty factor as no one was bothering to take the 10 stairs)
and saw a shoe shop on the move (or they’d just robbed a shoe shop)
It was a pretty hazy day but it made for some lovely cloud patterns on our way to the airport
The driver of the bus that we took to the airport was a bit of a maverick. He was calmly cutting up everyone on the motorway, expression not changing, coolly manoeuvring the bus to cut off cars, trucks and basically anything that looked like it was going to overtake him. This should have been our warning that he wasn’t quite normal. We were just coming into the airport and we’d stood up early to get out packs on so we didn’t hold anyone up. We were standing side-on in the aisle waiting for the driver to pull into the terminal when, without any warning and for absolutely no reason, he stomped hard on the brakes and the bus stopped dead in the middle of the road. Everyone in the bus went flying forward but everyone else had a seat in front of them except us. Euan managed to grab hold of the luggage rack and not go very far but I, fuelled by 19kg of pack on my back, went flying sideways (legs going in all directions) right on past him and towards the front of the bus. Euan tried to grab me but I had too much momentum and hurtled on past him. I have no idea how I managed to keep my feet as I was going sideways from the start but I did manage to grab hold of a bar on the front seat and stop myself from hurtling onto the dash and into the front window. No apology from the driver, no change of expression so I did what I thought might make him realise he’d failed in his mission to try and kill us. I laughed and didn’t stop laughing until we were in the terminal but the more we thought about it, the more we realised that it could have been a whole lot worse. Maybe getting up early in buses is not the done thing?! Bus drivers had been fab so far!!
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