Shanghai, China (7-10 Sep)

by Fudgie…

Our last train journey in China and a fast one for a matter of fact! Compared to our first VERY long ride in a hard seat over night we took the express train “bullet train” from Beijing to Shanghai, got up to a speed of 311 km/hr so made it to Shanghai in just 5 hours!

We got into the very modern, clean and well indicated train station just before 9pm and followed the signs for the subway. We then asked a very friendly Chinese couple for help and they sorted us out with tickets and took us to the right track and showed us where we had to change lines, they were so lovely! We made it to our hostel in just under an hour by subway, easy and cheap! Not as cheap as Beijing it was 5 Yuan instead of 2 Yuan, still much cheaper than a taxi. We checked in and by the time we got ourselves settled at our last “home” in China it was 11pm. We went looking for food and sadly the only place open at this hour, as Chinese eat at about 6pm was McD’s! Not the best option, Dean was a lot happier about this than I was.

8 Sept 2011

The next day 8^th of Sept we took it easy and enjoyed the lovely garden area at hostel and recharged on sleep and we finally had a good Internet connection so this is where we got our website up and running! FINALLY!!! It was a great relaxing day and well needed. In the evening we went for some local food tonight, thank goodness for that and then went and experienced our one and only Chinese massage. Was not bad, however, not nearly as good as the Thai massage. The good part was that we lay on a proper massage bed with a hole for your head when on your stomach. At the end of the massage I got some inner ear massage! Was a rather strange feeling felt good after it was done and my ears felt very cleanJ

9 Sept 2011

We had an early start today, as we wanted to see the city. We started off by going to get our train tickets to get to Hangzhou, as that is where we were flying out of. We sorted that out with no problem and then walked into the CBD. The city was very easy to navigate around. We enjoyed walking the streets of Shanghai seeing all the tall buildings and particularly enjoyed the walk along “The Bund”. The Bund is a walkway around the river that you can walk along and get a great view of the city center. We walking along Nanjing road, the main shopping street. We also did the “hop on hop off” bus and saw all the main sites. We had a great day walking and touring around and felt as though we had seen all there was to see in this Financial center.

10 Sept 2011

Another chilled out day, packed up and hung out at hostel before taking the subway back to the train station and got the train to Hangzhou. Easy ride there just under an hour to get to station and then another hour to get to Hangzhou. Got to the airport with plenty of time and took a 4 hour night flight to KL and arrived in KL at 4am!

China is over, a fantastic experience, we loved every minute of it! Next stop Malaysia. Dean will be playing cricket in KL for 2 weeks and I will travel around Malaysia with Kathy Hogan, cricket coaches wife, their daughter Lauren and Gemma. Some girl time will be great!

Stay tuned for Malaysia news coming soon…