Shanghai 2 - Return to shanghai
Just another quick post here since I don't have huge amounts of time to write details. I do still want to write up chengdu properly but need to find spare time to do so...
Last time I wrote I was feeling ill. That fortunately just lasted the day and next day I was up and about again and down to Leshan to see a giant Buddha. It was kind of cool but I don't know how much it was worth the full day trip. It was a 70 meter tall seated Buddha though which was something you don't see every day and that is what the trip is all about...
When I got back I tried sorting transport to Shanghai. Booking a next day flight with a foreign card proved impossible unfortunately but the hostel managed to sort me out the next morning so I got to shanghai. There were some exciting adventures due to Andy having told me the wrong metro station to get off at so when I was a bit bemused I got a dude on a motorbike (no taxis around) to take me. I was expecting tto be half a mile at most so the 20 minutes of heading south at 50kph was a little on the confusing side... Whether he was trying to rip me off or just clueless about where I was going I don't know but whatI was expecting to be a 10-15 minute walk turned into about a one hour bike ride...
Anyway, got here OK in the end. Met up with andy and we went shopping and grabbed some food. Then he went off to the cotton while I tried to fix his laptop that had some issues. This worked. Then next morning I got up nice and early to meet Hannah and George at the metro (having told them the correct stop) and sat around for about an hour, I think confusing the staff who at one point came over and asked if I was OK. I'm not sure what they thought the problem might be but it was very nice and they seemed to understand when I said I was waiting for friends. Or maybe they just understood "Yes, I'm ok" and nodded and smiled at the rest...
After getting them back to drop off bags and have a cup of tea we headed off to the station to buy onwards tickets to Hong Kong (hard sleeper, no soft sleeper tickets left :( ) to the Jade Buddha temple (another taxi driver rip, my own fault for trusting a taxi driver who was hailing me down) and then to Yu Yuan where we grabbed food and looked around the gardens. Then walked north to Nanjing Lu to get a subway back here. We collapsed had showers and then headed out to papa johns for dinner. :)
Today we are planning to go to the shanghai museum of history (again for me) and up a skyscraper or maybe two. Then back here and out for food and drink with Andy at some other club and then the cotton club. Then tomorrow may be a lazy day before we catch the train to Hong Kong,
It occurs to me that I am nearly half way through the travel part of my trip. nine and a half weeks away, two of which are the chill out time in Australia (which will be awesome but not in the same way). I'm currently three and a half weeks into travel which means only four weeks until I get on the flight to australia. Once I've got into the swing of things its all happening very fast....
Maybe on the train to HK I'll write that detailed Chengdu writeup...
Last time I wrote I was feeling ill. That fortunately just lasted the day and next day I was up and about again and down to Leshan to see a giant Buddha. It was kind of cool but I don't know how much it was worth the full day trip. It was a 70 meter tall seated Buddha though which was something you don't see every day and that is what the trip is all about...
When I got back I tried sorting transport to Shanghai. Booking a next day flight with a foreign card proved impossible unfortunately but the hostel managed to sort me out the next morning so I got to shanghai. There were some exciting adventures due to Andy having told me the wrong metro station to get off at so when I was a bit bemused I got a dude on a motorbike (no taxis around) to take me. I was expecting tto be half a mile at most so the 20 minutes of heading south at 50kph was a little on the confusing side... Whether he was trying to rip me off or just clueless about where I was going I don't know but whatI was expecting to be a 10-15 minute walk turned into about a one hour bike ride...
Anyway, got here OK in the end. Met up with andy and we went shopping and grabbed some food. Then he went off to the cotton while I tried to fix his laptop that had some issues. This worked. Then next morning I got up nice and early to meet Hannah and George at the metro (having told them the correct stop) and sat around for about an hour, I think confusing the staff who at one point came over and asked if I was OK. I'm not sure what they thought the problem might be but it was very nice and they seemed to understand when I said I was waiting for friends. Or maybe they just understood "Yes, I'm ok" and nodded and smiled at the rest...
After getting them back to drop off bags and have a cup of tea we headed off to the station to buy onwards tickets to Hong Kong (hard sleeper, no soft sleeper tickets left :( ) to the Jade Buddha temple (another taxi driver rip, my own fault for trusting a taxi driver who was hailing me down) and then to Yu Yuan where we grabbed food and looked around the gardens. Then walked north to Nanjing Lu to get a subway back here. We collapsed had showers and then headed out to papa johns for dinner. :)
Today we are planning to go to the shanghai museum of history (again for me) and up a skyscraper or maybe two. Then back here and out for food and drink with Andy at some other club and then the cotton club. Then tomorrow may be a lazy day before we catch the train to Hong Kong,
It occurs to me that I am nearly half way through the travel part of my trip. nine and a half weeks away, two of which are the chill out time in Australia (which will be awesome but not in the same way). I'm currently three and a half weeks into travel which means only four weeks until I get on the flight to australia. Once I've got into the swing of things its all happening very fast....
Maybe on the train to HK I'll write that detailed Chengdu writeup...