Thursday 6th October

Today is my last full day in shanghai so I decided to take a walk along the Bund, As I left the hostel it is a 2 minute walk to East Nanjing Road, the main pedestrian street. The walk is along two blocks and there are food stalls along it and restaurants with buckets outside full of live fish, crabs, frogs etc. There are also fruit stalls and this part in particular smells really bad, a mixture of rotting food and urine, this is actually quite a common smell on the streets of China and I have become an expert on breathing through my mouth and not my nose in these areas. As I reached East Nanjing Road it was then a few minutes’ walk to the bund, which is the water front with huge buildings on my side of the river which are all banks or fancy hotels and then across the river is Pudong, the financial district and area of the Oriental Pearl tower, Jinmao tower and Expo tower. While walking along the Bund I can tell the difference as the air is much cleaner than Beijing. As I reached the end of the Bund I realised I wasn’t far from the Yu yuan Bazaar and Yu gardens, so I carried on walking and browsing the market stalls on the way. As I reached the yu yuan Bazaar I sat and had ice cream and people watched for a while, this area is definitely the busiest and is also the old part of Shanghai.

I had a very pleasant afternoon and I returned to the hostel to shower and change ready for meeting Sam for dinner. We found a restaurant in the Pudong area and I had Peking duck pancakes, then we went to the Expo Observation tower and Hyatt hotel (same standard as the Jinmao Tower and the Ritz). We went up to the 87^th floor and had drinks in the restaurant, the view was amazing and it was a lovely relaxing atmosphere, the perfect end to our week in Shanghai.

Wednesday 5th October

Today I met Heather at the subway and we went to Shanghai zoo. It wasn’t as nicely landscaped as Beijing zoo, but the animals had bigger enclosures. We went on the big Ferris wheel to get a birds eye view of the zoo and then took a sort of golf buggy vehicle that took us around the zoo (it was huge, we never would have been able to walk it, especially as it was quite hot again today).

After the zoo we took the subway to West Nanjing Road to do some shopping and had lunch at Marks and Spencers! I had a chicken salad and it was amazing, nowhere in China seems to have salad at all so it was a welcome change. I then returned to the hostel before we met up with Sam at 6pm to go out for dinner. We took the subway to Pudong (across the river from the Bund) it is a posh finance district and we had seen an Italian while going past on the open top bus. It was a bit more expensive, but the food was amazingly good and it was a really nice atmosphere just me, Heather and Sam, catching up properly.

My friend Mark (who is a teacher at Beijing International school) arrived in Shanghai today and text me to see if I wanted to meet for a drink, so after dinner myself and Sam said our goodbyes to Heather who was leaving tomorrow and took a taxi to go and meet Mark. We picked him up on the Bund and took the taxi to Big Bamboo, a bar I had read about in my lonely planet guide. We had passed a few bars on the way so we decided to try a few of them and went to the red dragon across the road. There were two women stood in the doorway and they were shouting hello and telling Sam and Mark that they had fuseball and to come in. I sat at the bar next to the fuseball table where Sam and Mark had been challenged to a 2 Vs 2 game of fuseball with these two women. I started to look around the bar and realised that there were 8 waitresses for only us 3 customers. Then 3 men walked in, picked a “waitress” each and went through a curtain into a back room, which I thought was a bit odd. Then two more western men walked in and I asked one of them if it was just a bar (I had a feeling we had stumbled across something more) The man said he didn’t know so I returned to my stool at the bar, a few minutes later he came over and said that it wasn’t just a bar, we had stumbled on a brothel!!! I have never felt so uncomfortable and I was trying to catch Mark and Sam’s eyes but they were too engrossed in their game of fuseball (which they lost painfully to these two prostitutes) They finally came over and we very quickly finished our drinks and left! We had a drink in a bar around the corner and Sam and Mark wanted to go to a club nearby, as soon as we got there though I decided that I had had enough and left them to it.

Tuesday 4th October

At 10.30am I met Heather at the subway station to get the open top tour bus on the route we didn’t have time to do yesterday. We then got a taxi to the Shanghai Botanical gardens which were so beautiful. We started to walk around and realised that it was huge so we decided to hire a boat and see if we could see more from the small river that ran through it. The boat was a small speed boat size with a motor, I got in first so I was steering and we went off along the river. We turned a corner and realised that the river went through a low tunnel that was too narrow for us to go through so we had to turn around, trouble was it was actually a really narrow part of the river! We ended up trying to bounce the boat off the rocks to try and get it to turn around as there was literally no where else to go, we were killing ourselves laughing and a crowd of Chinese people had gathered on the bridge watching us and taking pictures of us, stuck on the rocks trying to turn the boat around, which just made us laugh even more! I finally turned the boat around and almost tipped the boat over climbing into the back so that Heather could have a go at steering the boat. We went the other way down the river and came to another dead end, so Heather had to try and turn the boat around and got us stuck on the rocks! I had to push us off the rocks and nearly fell in doing it, which made us laugh even more! While I was doing that a big frog (the size of a toad) came swimming up next to us and I honestly thought it was going to jump into the boat it was that close (anyone who knows me will know that frogs really freak me out) I was trying to judge if I could jump from the boat onto the bank if the frog jumped onto the boat! We finally got moving again and returned the boat to the docking area and as I was pulling myself up onto the dock, the boat started floating away and I nearly fell in, much to Heathers amusement!

After the excitement of the boat ride we were a bit tired so we jumped onto the sightseeing tour (a 12 seater golf buggy driven by a Chinese woman who kept stopping and pointing to trees!) and we were glad we did as we realised that we had only covered a quarter of the gardens, there was still a lot more to see! We went back to the entrance of the gardens and took a taxi back into the city to have lunch on the Bund which was nice.

For all the photos click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627699974215/

Monday 3rd October

Today I met up with my friend Heather, who is staying at a different hostel and we went to the Yuyuan gardens. No one else was awake when I left at 10.30am (a lot of people were out the night before) We took the subway and walked through the Yu Yuan Bazaar, an old style shopping street that all of the buildings are an old style called Ming-Dynasty. The streets were so busy with people pushing and shoving to get through so it took a while to get through the crowds. The Yu Yuan gardens were really pretty and it wasn’t anywhere near as busy as the streets outside it. The Yu gardens are apparently the best example of a traditional Suzhou garden to be found in Shanghai.

After the gardens we took an open top tour bus around the finance district which was good to get our bearings of the city, it was really cold and windy. It was one of the girls Lindsay birthday today so we then returned to the hostel to meet everyone else to go on the Huangpu river cruise at 6pm (it’s dark by then so we could see the city illuminated which was good). There wasn’t anywhere to sit down though and my feet were already hurting after the long day I had had with Heather so having to stand up for 90 minutes didn’t help. After the cruise we then all (17 of us) went to pizza hut to celebrate Lindsay's birthday. It was 10.30pm by this point and everyone wanted to go on to do KTV (karaoke) but myself and Heather and a few others were too tired so we returned to the hostel then. There are a few people who got really drunk last night and spent the day in bed today, getting up at 5pm to do the river cruise and then going out drinking at KTV tonight they are probably going to be getting up late tomorrow which to me feels like a complete waste of the week in Shanghai, I want to be getting up every morning giving me enough time to do the sightseeing and getting as much in as I can as I am only here until Friday morning!

To see all the pics click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627824096086/

Sunday 2nd October

I woke up today in my room at the hostel and I didn’t have a clue where I was! It took me a while to realise, the hostel was actually quite noisy last night, I am just down the hall from the bar so I could hear people talking until 2am (the walls are quite thin) but the bed was really comfy and I then had a good nights sleep.

There are 10 of us from TTC staying at the hostel and we had arranged to meet in the bar at 10am to go to the markets with a Chinese friend of one of the group who is from Shanghai and offered to take us to the markets. As soon as we got there Sam, Heather, Lindsay and I realised it was a mistake, the market was packed (the whole city is as it’s golden week, but the markets especially) so we made our excuses and left. I wanted to see the Oriental Pearl tower so we got the subway there, the tower is 468 metres high and is the highest TV tower in Asia. The tower has a revolving restaurant at the top, an observation deck at 263 metres and a roller coaster inside the tower at 90metres which was really good. The views were amazing and the observation deck had a glass floor so you could see below you.

After the Oriental Pearl tower it started pouring down with rain so we went back to the hostel to chill out before everyone was meeting up again for food and to go out for the night in Shanghai. There is definitely a temperature difference between Shanghai and Beijing, Beijing is much warmer, but there is also the feeling that Shanghai is so much more advanced and modern.

For more pics click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627824081284/

Saturday 1st October

Today was the first day of the “Golden week” holiday and I got a taxi to the airport at 3pm. When I arrived at 3.30pm at the check in desk I was asked if I wanted to change to an earlier flight (my flight wasn’t supposed to be until 5.40pm) and I was put onto the 4pm flight so I had to rush through the airport. I boarded the plane and there were empty rows of seats and no one sat next to me so I could stretch out which was nice! The flight was 1 hour 40 minutes and I arrived in Shanghai at 6pm. I got a taxi to the hostel and practised my Chinese on the taxi driver (it is a standing joke amongst a few of the teachers that every taxi we get into I try to practice my Chinese, but I only know how to say hello, how are you, my name is Pippa, what’s your name, and I would like a taxi to the restaurant) So every time I get in a taxi I say these phrases, but then the taxi drivers usually think I can speak Chinese and start talking to me and have no idea what they are saying.

Shanghai is said to be the New York of China and I can understand why, it was dark (and raining heavily)as I was driving from the airport to the hostel and every building is lit up by coloured lights and looks so pretty. The city itself is really busy and the hostel is about a 5 minute walk from “the Bund” the famous area of Shanghai. The hostel is actually really nice (although I paid extra for a private room and en suite rather than stay in the dorms with communal showers and toilets!) There are 10 of us so far staying at this hostel and another group of people in a hostel down the road and then 10 more people staying somewhere else nearby so it will be nice to catch up with everyone.

Friday 30th September

Today was the last day of school and everyone was looking forward to the week off, it has been a bit of a shock to the system working 9-5pm again! The weather has been nice this week, it’s been 35 degrees and since all the pollution has cleared a bit from the beginning o the week there has been blue skies.

After school all of the teachers were going to the Irish bar nearby for food and drinks so we all went and had a really good evening. A few of us went into Beijing centre and danced the night away which was really fun and we bumped into a few people that we knew from TTC so it was nice to catch up.