Shanghai11-07-09We’re off to Shanghai today, our plane leaves at 8am but we have to meet the tour group at the airport for 5.30am. We had to leave the house at 5am but had an alarm set for 3am, foolishly, we didn’t get any sleep but still felt quite awake as we left for the airport.
We had to meet the tour group at the airport was because we had booked another package holiday tour with Hong Thai, a travel company that specialises in package holidays. We got a great deal for Shanghai, 5 days, 5 star hotels and also visit some of the surrounding cities. We met our local tour guide, Sally, at the check in counter along with the rest of the group. Sally was very unorganised compared to Victor, our last tour guide, she also seemed like a bit of a bitch. The tour group was mostly made up of families this time, last time it was couples but we seem like the only young couple on the tour.
Checking in and tickets are all sorted by the tour guide, we just had to collect our tickets. Thankfully, we were given seats next t each other this time and I got a window seat. With time to spare before boarding the plane, we went for something to eat. We went to Popeye’s, an American Fried Chicken fast food restaurant.
Not the best of foods to eat at 6am but I was hungry and it was just what I needed. We took longer than expected eating so headed straight through security to the boarding gate. No problems this time apart from me forgetting my Departure Card again. We flew with Dragon Air again for a short 2 hour flight, complete with awful plane food and rubbish entertainment.
We were health checked on the plane again as we landed, thankfully both of us were cleared despite my headache. Antonia’s new Hong Kong ID let her into the country and I used the second of my double visa to get into the country, no more trips to the main land after this. We got our luggage and was supposed to meet up with Sally, the tour guide. She was nowhere to be seen in the baggage collection hall so we went through the exit hoping she would be there, she wasn’t. After standing around looking for a second, we was approached by a lady who recognised our badges (which we have to wear on the tour), she was the local tour guide. She called Sally and she soon appeared with the rest of the group.
More Pictures of the Airport
We took our bags to the tour bus waiting outside the airport but was told not to board the bus, we were getting into central Shanghai by a new form of transport, The Maglev. The Maglev is like a train but runs over magnets which keep it levitated from the ground slightly.
We hurried on to the Maglev to get window seats but there was no need as it was quite empty. We sat down and spoke for a while when a small head appeared from between the seats in front. “Hello!! Hello Hello Hello blur bluah blurh!!” It was a small kid on our tour group trying to greet us with hello’s and an array of silly faces, he then proceeded to put his arm through and violently shake my hand, almost pulling it from the socket. The Maglev was fast, very fast, reaching 300km/h and our destination in only 8 minutes. When we arrived at the station, Antonia got a call from Yishi, one of our friends from London who had moved back to Shanghai. We arranged to meet Yishi later in the day but had to continue with the tour until then so back on the bus.
More Pictures of the Bus Ride
We pulled into a car park full of tour busses, a short walk from the car park and we had arrived in a large shopping square, Yuyuan Old Street. The area is built up with traditional style buildings full of souvenir and snack stands, it was originally one large shopping town but split into Old and Fashion Street. We were given free time to go and explore so we went off to find a snack.
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We eventually found a place to eat, Crown Café. I was almost instantly drawn in by the sweet smell of cakes, almost put off by the Mickey and Minnie Mouse mascots clowning around outside. The place was full of cakes and pastries, I was spoilt for choice and felt like a kid, well, me in a sweet shop with the tray and tongs in hang to take what I wanted.
I choose just two cakes and got a chicken burger type roll for Antonia, it looked really good but I wanted and needed something sweet. As I was paying one of the staff members suggested I try one of their new specialty drinks, the Agar Ball Smoothie. Having no idea what it was, I chose strawberry. We took the food and ate upstairs as it was too hot outside to walk and eat.
More Pictures of Cakes
The first cake, the Strawberry Lavender Jam cake was instantly one of the best cakes I’ve ever had. A very soft white bun coated in a sweet strawberry like coating, sprinkled with coconut. Inside was a very light strawberry/lavender jam. It was perfect! The other bun was a bit crap, far too much cream for such a light bun, I only ate the sweet jam and a bit of the bun before leaving it aside. The drink was lovely, it’s a very tasty ice smoothie with small strawberry flavoured jelly balls. The balls are very soft and just pop in your mouth, it’s almost like eating bubble wrap, not that I’ve tried it...
We continued to walk around for the rest of our free time and shop for souvenirs. Most of the shops here all sell the same stuff, just different designs and slight variations on the price. In one of the shops I was looking at a fan for my mum, the saleswoman approached asking if I was interest and told us the price, it was high, we said no and she asked what we wanted to pay, kicking off a haggling session which lowered the price to a fair amount. With a few gifts for the family, we headed back to meet the rest of the group.
The bus ride from Yuyuan wasn’t too long, we passed through a built up area of Shanghai with many tall buildings including the odd looking TV Tower. I took a load of photos from the bus but the quality isn’t so great because of the dirty window I was behind.
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We pulled up close to the TV Tower and walked to the river side. The combination of the blazing sun and burning heat made me want to stay in the bus but we had to get off and walk around for a bit.
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We didn’t stay here for too long, just enough to take photos, it was a great view but too hot to properly appreciate it. When we got back on the bus the local tour guide spoke briefly which was followed by clapping as the bus pulled away. Apparently the driver had parked in an illegal spot to let us quickly look around the river side at the best spot.
Our next stop was the Pearl TV Station, a tall alien looking building that looks like a skewed onion of xmas tree decoration. There is a security checkpoint before you can get into the building, I got stopped and my laptop was taken away before I was allowed access. Apparently you’re not allowed to bring in laptops so I had to leave it and collect on the way out. We took the elevator up to the viewing floor quite near the top, didn’t take too long, apparently the elevator does 8 Meters per second.
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We got a great view from the top, just like a normal window view until we went down one level to the glass bottom floor. The whole floor is glass bottomed so it’s like you’re walking in the air, it was great. I’d never seen so much glass floor, usually it’s just a window in the ground but this was much better. I took a video to upload but Youtube is blocked in China so I can’t upload it until I get back, I can’t message my friends on Facebook or update my Twitter feed either, great...
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Here is the video from the top, I had to wait till I got back to Hong Kong to upload it.
We had to hurry back down the building to meet Yishi who was waiting outside. As we rushed for the exit I made a quick a stop at the ice cream shop. I got Lemon Sorbet and a White Chocolate Strawberry for Yishi as we had left her waiting for quite a while.
We hurried out of the building to meet Yishi but she wasn’t at the exit. We went around to the entrance, but she wasn’t there either. We couldn’t call her because Antonia’s mobile can’t make international calls. We finally found her waiting outside the courtyard of the TV tower. It was very easy to spot Yishi amongst all the tourists due to her tight, overly summery, low v-neck dress. We gave her the melted ice cream which she devoured at a pig-like pace, and headed to the nearby shopping mall.
We went to The Super Brand which is apparently the biggest shopping mall in China. The shopping mall was just across the road from the TV tower, so it wasn’t long until we were back in the nice air conditioning. The shopping mall was incredibly busy, with a constant flow of people entering the building. We later found out why...
We walked around the shopping mall for a while before coming across a huge crowd of people screaming, clapping and cheering for some Chinese boyband (pretty much Westlife with more makeup than Girls Aloud). We hurried past the crowd and headed to Toys’r’us. As we got in, I saw a Nintendo display. In China, it seems that Nintendo is branded as iQue. They had handheld N64 consoles and DSLites, both with the new branding. Apparently it is illegal to sell the imported consoles and games in China. There wasn’t much to see in Toys’r’us, so we headed to a Japanese restaurant for a mid-afternoon snack, Watami Shanghai.
Photos of the iQue
As we sat in the restaurant, Yishi made reservations for dinner at another restaurant for later this evening. I was surprised when Yishi and Antonia ordered so much food despite having booked dinner just a few hours later.
The food here was reeeaally good, the girls ordered lots of little appetiser dishes that seemed to just make me even hungrier than I was before I came in. I really enjoyed the deep fried chicken wings and small cubes of beefsteak.
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We left the restaurant with a few hours to spare, so looked around a few more shops before heading to an arcade on the top floor. The arcade was full of token games, typical arcade and a few music games. There were quite a few arcade games that were Chinese clones of existing games. There was a Supermonkey Ball game that looked really cool that had me standing on a balance board to play- sadly it didn’t work. The best clone game there was Percussion Master which is a superior clone of Taiko no Tatsujin. We mostly played the token games, and a few arcade games from the late 90s, including the brilliant armadillo racing game.
Armadillo racing is exactly how it sounds- you use a giant tracker ball to control an armadillo on the race course. It is easily one of the best arcade games that I’ve played in a long time. We stayed in the arcade for a few hours, spending only £10 in total. By the time we left, we were late for dinner, so hurried into a taxi to get to the restaurant.
This is a video of Armadillo Racing, it's awesome and a lot of fun to play. Very fast and hectic, a rush to get to the finish and a struggle to control the Armadillo at speed, I think in the video I roll him off a bridge, at speed.
The restaurant was recommended by Yishi because of the cool entrance mechanism where you have to press a secret code using stones in the wall to gain access to the restaurant. Sadly, at this branch, there were no stones, just a slot in the wall to put your hand in to activate the sliding gates that reveal the pathway to the restaurant.
The restaurant had a nice atmosphere, it was nice and relaxing, had low lighting and cool interior design. Since we were late, we had to wait at the bar area for 20 minutes before another table was free. While we waited for the food to arrive, I went to use the bathroom. I entered the hallway leading to the bathroom which turned into a mirror maze as I turned the corner. It took me a good few minutes to find a door which was a small toilet cubicle, as cool as it was, I wasn’t impressed as I really needed to go!
The food served at this restaurant is fusion food, a mix of all types of asian food with a slight western style and presentation. For example, the chicken spring rolls were served like long bread sticks which made them perfect for dipping.
More Pictures of Dinner
Dinner wasn’t that great, the food was pretty bad and for what it was, I feel it was overpriced. Midway through our meal we were joined by Sophia, another friend of ours from London who was back in Shanghai. We all had a great time catching up over dinner but called it a night after as we were all tired and had places to be in the morning.
We took a taxi back to the hotel and had already been checked in by the tour guide. The hotel was nice but we didn’t take long too look around before heading to our room and calling it a night.
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Today was great, I think we had a much better time by leaving the tour group at the tower and heading out to meet Yishi. It was nice to catch up with her again after not seeing her for so long, meeting with a local is always the best way to explore a city. It was also nice and unexpected to see Sophia before she had to rush off. The arcade was a lot of fun and I don’t regret the amount of time we spent in here, Armadillo Racing is awesome, I really want to do that one again.
The food we had with Yishi for mid-afternoon snacks was amazing, the dinner, not so much but the restaurant decor and mirror maze half made up for it. Tomorrow we’re off to Suzhou so going to try get an early night as we have to be up by 6.15 to get the suitcase ready as we’re checking out in the morning.