Back In Shanghai For The Day

Interesting Cuisine

Again, Harriet and I quickly made friends with the local Chinese man in our cabin berth. It's a shame that I can't for the life of me remember his name because he was very friendly, loved to practise his English with us and was incredibly helpful when it was called upon. We spent most of the night chatting and playing card games. He entertained us for a most of the journey, which was lucky because for the first time, our train was suffering technical problems and we actually ended up getting into Shanghai about 4 hours late!!!

He was a young man who worked in the computer games industry, but who then went onto explain that you couldn't legally buy a Playstation or X-Box console in China (you can from Hong Kong) and that the government also block a lot of websites, denying you access to specific pieces of information, which explained the reason that I had a lot of trouble accessing Facebook. The political situation in China is complicated.

He also recommended a few places to visit around Shanghai that we had not yet seen, and when we departed he got onto the subway with us and then walked us all the way to the first location before returning to the subway to head home and see his family. I can't imagine too many English folk I know doing that for a tourist they had never met before.

The place he walked us to was called Xin Tian Di. It's a rejuvenated neighbourhood of Shanghai, filled with narrow streets that are full of smart coffee shops and restaurants. It has a modern and affluent feel to it and is regarded as the new, trendy part of town. It was designed by an American architect, yet has a design that seems to fuse Chinese and European style, well at least in my opinion. It's pretty cool and is making its name as an entertainment center.

After a look around and a bite to eat, we took a taxi to a popular spot with tourists and locals alike, known as Yu Yuan Gardens, but to me felt more like a very Chinese-styled water village. The area had very narrow streets borded by elegant buildings and street market style shops as well as food stools that had particularly interesting cuisine. Water features surround the old-styled buildings and the whole area has a bustling atmosphere along the busy streets yet a relaxing feel once out onto the sections dominated by the water-garden.

After a day enjoying the sun and sights of Shanghai, we jumped in a tuk tuk. I had forgotten how much fun they were as I hadn't ventured into one since my times in South East Asia, but then got into an argument with the driver over pricing that I thought we had agreed before the journey (apparently not), which funnily enough also reminded me of my past traveling experiences. We eventually made it to the train station for our long journey back to Hong Kong.

We had a about 6 days coming up in Hong Kong and among all the sight seeing, I couldn't wait to first do absolutely nothing. It had been a hectic ride across China and we were absolutely knackered, plus the fact that we also both smelt worse than a seal giving birth, so we would definately enjoy some rest and relaxation (and a good scrub) before doing anything even mildly active. Yet despite the craziness, our times in China had been fun, interesting and all-in-all, an incredible experience that we would both not forget in a hurry. I'd love to come back and see more. It's such a vast country and places from one corner to the next are so very different from each other that you could spend a life-time exploring the place. For now though, I had had a real taster and it was time for Hong Kong, which I was equally excited about returning to................