A Year in China: Shanghai

I went to visit my friends down south in Dongguan, Guangdong. From there we went to Guangzhou and took a train to Shanghai. We bought the tickets too late so we missed out on beds, and when we got on we were lucky to get seats as they sell as many tickets as they can, so there are always people standing. The train had more then 15 carriages and the ride was very slow and bumpy.

The trip took almost 21 hours. We left Guangzhou at 2pm and arrived in Shanghai the next day at 10:45am. I was sitting virtually the whole way. When we first left it was so hot inside, and the carriage was full of cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, the windows were all sealed shut. There were so many people standing or sitting in the aisles on their luggage.

After six hours or so, I got up to go to the toilet. I stepped over a few people sleeping on the floor, and when I reached the toilets I discovered they were squat toilets. I won't go into too much detail of what I saw, but just try and imagine what happens when people try using a squat toilet on a moving bumpy train. I decided to stand and let someone have my seat for the last five hours as I was sick of sitting down.

When we finally arrived, we went to my friend's cousin's place to stay there during our trip. The next day we visited the Bund, which is the main walkway by the harbour. The bund is lined by European style buildings built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Bund

They served as banks and trade-houses from the UK, the US, Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The city skyline viewed from the Bund. You can see the famous Pearl TV Tower on the left.

Shanghai is a very nice city, with a lot to do and see, it has a very modern feel to it and the streets are very clean which is always a plus.

During my stay we visited the Yuyuan Garden, which was filled with old buildings and shops, and a constant flow of people.

We stopped by one of the tea houses there to try Shanghai's world famous Xiaolong Dumplings (小笼包). They were absolutely delicious.

The next day we went to visit the West Lake in Hangzhou, just two hours outside Shanghai. We went for a boat ride around the massive lake. It was very peaceful and scenic, but unfortunately it was raining constantly.

My grandmother is a devout Catholic, so she wanted me to visit a cathedral in Shanghai that she had heard about. It's called Saint Ignatius' Cathedral and is located in the suburb of Xujiahui (徐家汇). The Cathedral was built in the early 1900's by French Jesuits.

Although I do not believe in any religion, I still admire beautiful architecture of both religious and secular buildings alike. The cathedral itself is a very nice building, and the interior is truly worth seeing, filled with white stone, beautiful stain-glass windows and artworks.

Later on we went across the river to go up the pearl TV tower, but the line was too long as this was during the time of the Shanghai World Expo. We decided to just go and eat dinner nearby instead. At around 10:30pm, we decided to head back to the apartment, but we didn't realise the subway had already closed and there were no buses going across the river. We ended up having to catch a taxi and split the cost between us, which the total came to 120 RMB.

The next day, we went to the World Expo. It was so crowded with long lines, and it was very hot and humid, but it was well worth seeing. The grounds were so big and the pavilions looked really interesting, especially the Chinese one which was by far the largest and towered above the rest.

The Chinese pavilion. To get a sense of the enormity of this pavilion, just see if you can spot the people at the top of the stairs.

Israeli pavilion.

We got to the expo at 10:30am and left at 9:30pm, so it was a very long day. We managed to get inside a fair few pavilions, including China, Pakistan, Israel, New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, Australia, and Finland.