Harrow Shanghai

20th April - Arrive Shanghai

So we arrived in off the night train at 10.20 on the 20th April. Apart from us all being in dire need for a shower we were all feeling surprisingly refreshed! So we got taxi's from the train station to the hotel, The Jinjiang Inn. This hotel even nicer, really bright and spacious rooms. Again I would be sharing with Miri and we would stay like this for the whole trip - suited us both fine! After freshening up we met Xu for our orientation walk of Shanghai. First impression...A LOT more cosmopolitan than Beijing. The people, although staring, didn't stare QUITE as much, and when we reached the main shopping street, Nanjing Street there were lots of familiar stores` and a MASSIVE apple store. Although for anyone visiting, Xu has told us it's definitely cheaper "to buy ipad" in Hong Kong. Not that that was on my shopping list anywhoo ;) We walked down Nanjing Street until we reached the Bund, the main river that runs through Shanghai. On the far side of the river there are a lot of interestingly shaped sky scrapers that adorn most of the Shanghai postcards. The tallest building looks like a massive bottle opener (well to me anyway!). Xu told us that most Shanghai-ians (my word) aren't the biggest fans of this building as it was financed by the Japanese and cost about a billion dollars, so in typical Chinese style they're in the process of building a slightly taller building just beside it, like they can't be shown up like that!!

After walking along the bund for a while we reached this massive bazaar. It was amazeballs. The buildings were all typically what we'd call "chinesey" in their style, and there were lots of local crafts and the typical touristy shizzle on sale there. The bartering in China is honestly a skill in itself. You really have to be ruthless. From talking to the Australian guy in the Beijing hostel, he had told us he'd been told from the starting price they give you, you usually end up paying about 10%-15% of that. Like there's no logic to it at all!! It's not like say New York, where you kinda offer 50% of their price, and then barter back up, but it's just the way it's done. For example at this bazaar, I wanted to pick up some postcards and a magnet (did somebody say TOURIST!) So for a pack of 12 postcards and a typical magnet, the lady said 180Yuan, about €22 - like ridiculous! The final price I ended up getting it for... 20Y, less than €2.50. Xu looked a mixture between horrified and impressed when I told him what I finally paid. I think he was a bit scared...I had to start assuring him that I wasn't some ruthless Del-Boy!!

After we got back from the market, we chilled for a bit then we met Xu and he brought us to an Acrobatics show. It was, to coin a phrase not quite as popular in China yet, "TOTES AMAZE"! No joke it was seriously impressive. The "acrobats", i.e. children and teenagers doing everything from swinging between massive ropes without any harnesses, to amazing gymnastic type displays to fitting 8/9 people on one rickity bicycle, to tight-rope walking. The final display was the "Bikes of Doom" or something, basically you remember those wheels of death type displays you'd see at fun fairs at home sometimes. Where 2/3 motorbikes spin round and round this circular structure. Well this was a massive enclosed caged sphere, and they fit 5 of them in there zooming around after each other, really impressive!

After the show, we decided to get a taxi back down to the Bund to get a view of the skyscrapers with all their lights on in the dark, it was cool...uuuuuntil it started to lash from the heavens and we got absolutely soaked! After a few token pictures we squelched home and just had a few beers in the room.

21st April - Explore Shanghai...Eat, Shop...Karaoke.

The bazaar we visited on our first day in Shanghai had a famous "Steamed Bun" Restaurant - to explain, these "steamed buns", look like what we would call dumplings to be honest. Xu had told us about these before we got to Shanghai, but when we saw the MASSIVE queue of people waiting to get their steamed buns we knew he must not have been exagerrating about how good they were. As much as I wanted to get them then, we were waaay to hungry to queue for an hour, so we grabbed something handy. We decided it was worth the queue so we headed back early on day 2 in Shanghai. When we got to the bazaar, hoping "the early bird catches the ...steamed bun" theory might save us some queuing time we were greeted by an even longer queue than the day previous, but screw it, steamed buns we wanted and steamed buns we were gonna get. We joined the queue and enjoyed the "interesting" aromas that greeted us from the top of the queue ha ha! When we got to the top, we ordered the international way - i.e. lots of pointing and making the "1" indication. When we received our little tray of steamed buns, we did like the locals and poured some vinegar over them and moved out of the way to find somewhere to enjoy them away from the hustle and bustle. Well they were definitely worth the hype - inside there was a mixture of minced meat (ignorance is bliss) and crab meat, and with the vinegar there was a lovely tangey taste to them. I know I'm not really selling them here, but trust me they were delish!

After our steamed bun brekkie I was on a mission to buy a camera. I had watched an informative documentary on Channel 4 (ok ok ...Gok Wan's "Made in China" programme, maybe not quite the discovery channel) about these massive electronics emporiums that are around Shanghai, so I googled any specific camera-related ones. I found one, got the address and nearest subway station and set off on a mission. I was joined by Emma and Kim who were just up for a bit of an adventure. We made it through the three jam packed subway rides to reach our final destination, however once there, we were really flying by the seat of our pants to try and find the actual buildings, as surprisingly our 5 days in Shanghai hadn't quite yet given us mandarin sign reading capabilities!! We decided to just head down in one direction, and hope for the best! After a few gestures from locals we finally found what looked like the correct place and headed in. I knew what camera I was looking for a Panasonic Lumix DMC..something something so upon entering I avoided the Nikon and Sony shops. However after a quick look round the ground floor, there seemed to ONLY be Nikon and Sony shops. Aah, second floor it must be, I thought. Well 4 floors later and all we were greeted by was empty shop units and the odd camera bag shop and it looked like our camera shopping adventure was looking like one big failure, and I felt like quite the dope. So as we left the "emporium" with my tail between my legs, we looked around for a taxi, not wanting to face the crazy busy subway again, we walked up the street...what did we see on the OTHER side of the building we were in... a massive building with a MASSIVE camera sign on the building...I mean what could have given it away!!! DELIGHTED, we headed in...ground floor...BAM, a Panasonic store, FILLED with Lumix cameras! Found the camera I was looking for, unleashed some of my master bartering skills and walked out, camera in hand, and a good deal gotten. Smug as fuck, we got a taxi back to the pub beside our hotel for a couple of celebratory beers.

We couldn't stay beering in the local for too long, as we had a major night ahead. Oh yes, a major night indeed. We planned a Saturday night out Shanghai Styleeee...that meant one thing...Karaoke! We met up at 6pm and grabbed some food nearby, then at 9 on the button, we hit up the Karaoke place, and it was hoppin! Xu had told us that Karaoke was pretty popular amoungst the young Chinese folk so we had to go and do like the locals and give it a bash. We had done a few vocal exercises (i.e. gone to the pub for a few vocal chord loosening beers) and were ready to go. Frankly, when Xu saw our enthusiasm he looked a little scared! We choose plenty of songs, got a round of beers in (12 bottles of Tiger beer for 102Yuan, i.e. €12 and cracked out the tunes. We all gave it a bash (Blur's Song 2 and Labrinth's Earthquake being my two tunes of choice) and went all out. As fantastic as everyone was, I think we would all concede that the highlight of the night was our Danish couple Marianna and Kim's version of Barbie Girl that stole the show. To put this into context, Kim (guy by the way, supposedly a normal guy's name in Denmark) is a total rocker and a musician as a living, so to here him doing "Come on baahbie lets go paaahty" in the exact accent of the guy from Aqua had us all on the floor laughing! Brill fun!

Three hours passed, and copious rounds of Tiger beer later we had come to the end of our Karaoke time. Unwilling to let the night end there, we head back to our local bar beside the hotel and continued the party! After showing yet another barmaid how to make baby guinness we continued to party until the early hours.

22nd April - Hangover + 17 Hour Train Journey = The Fear.

Well suffice to say drinking Shanghai dry of beer led to a rather subdued group on our last day in lovely Shanghai. After waking up, showering and attempting to pack, we got a taxi to the train station. The taxi drivers in Shanghai are MENTAL. I mean there is actually no sense the driving rules in Shanghai, or even China in general from our experiences so far. I mean it's ever car/bike/pedestrian/tuktuk for themselves. They just drive where they want to drive beeping all the time just to let people know that they're there and they're not going to stop for anyone! I mean there were so many incidences when we were all just shutting our eyes and shouting out "ohmyfuckinggod" we lost count!

Well we finally made it to the train station, and boarded our train before 4pm. Once we got on the train, after lugging our massive backpacks with us, we all just crashed out. We were absolutely wiped from the night before. I think for about 2 hours nobody was even able to form sentences. After a few hours I decide to relieve the boredom and fear of "god what did we get up to last night" thoughts by watching some of Alan Carr's stand-up comedy on my laptop. Well this did the job perfectly, and after a couple of hours, "the fear" relieved and we slept off the hangover. Next stop - Xi'an!