The following 12 hours have the potential to topple the Milan train journey, I`ve been guided into the shanghai waiting room along with a hundred others like cattle to the slaughter. I`ve got an hour till boarding but for the fact it`s a 110 yuan (11 quid) train journey that travels across half the country to Beijing, i`m somewhat sceptical about the quality of my journey. When you purchase your tickets there`s the usual class difference to pick. Soft sleeper; as in 4 bunk beds, toilet etc, Hard sleeper; 20 odd beds in one carriage 3 bunks high, Soft seater; which i`m guessing is something like a regular seat, then hard seater; which again as i`m yet to use a train is only off hear`say but seems to be a school bench running the length of one carriage. Obviously being the Cheap skate i am and my love of pain, i went with the hard seat.
I`ve been in Shanghai 3 night/4 days now.. i ought start with the boat and go from there i guess.a
We all stepped off the boat, happy to be back on steady ground again and had decided to all meet up after finding a ATM and chucking our bags in the hostel. Mine the "Mingtown Etour Hostel" wasn`t to bad to find and was shortly back at the meeting spot for the others. Some had a little more trouble than most, but eventually we all pretty much met back up and allowed kev to show us around. Kev was the Chinese Japanese/English speaking dude and had said he`d take us to get some good food. He first led us to the old town, it`s the place in the pictures with plenty of red lanterns and was my first experience to Dim sum. Although i`ve now been told it`s not really unless it`s in a soup or something like that!! But there basically little pork filled dumplings with a oily sauce inside. There Amazing (i know i`ve been saying allot things are amazing recently but these things really are, and for 6 it came to like 40 pence)
The old towns pretty cool, quite touristy but plenty of good street food and a bunch of souvenir shops to have a gander at. I can`t remember where we got took for the night meal, i was unable to re-find it over the following days, but i do remember that 11 of us split 11 meals, 15 or so bowls of rice and 22 beers and only had to cough up something around two pound ten each. After japan this was a god send. Oh crap, we`ve gotta go through ticket inspection, guess i`ll pick it up either on route if i have room or after arrival when there`ll probably be tear stains on this page :)
The train journey really wasn`t that bad, i didn`t get much sleep but i least had a seat this time, and was able to watch 30 rock on my lappy.
Ok next day, and rain! nothing but rain, not even umbrella copeable rain but the sort that makes it virtually impossible to go out in. I did venture out at one point to the modern art museum which was kinda part cool, part completely up it`s own arse... There was the video game flower on display, projected on a big screen in a large white room with a PS3 pad available to mess with. That was neat to see it given a spot in a place like that and at the night i went to visit Sarah a girlfriend of a ex-work colleague, well actually i went to meet her twice as i`d forgotten to change the watch from japan time and arrived an hour early first time through.
The next day and more rain, it was a real bummer not being able to go and explore, and this was now my last night. I`d met a Scottish couple the other day and spent most the time chatting and drinking with them, and after grabbing some lunch (which wasn`t great) i headed off to the station.
Talking of food the night before i went into a random restaurant with no English menu or person and after pointing at other peoples plates and saying chicken quite allot she went away and came back with just a fried chicken, feet head, everything! i poked it with chopsticks for a bit and in the end resorted to dumplings from a street market.
Welcome,
to yet another travel blog!
This is the second time I’ve wrote this intro thing. I wrote one trying way too hard to sound the way I wish I could write. The truth is though, since my GCSE’s I haven’t had to do any proper writing what-so-ever. I did all art A-level as well as an art degree and now work as a graphic designer.
Hopefully it turns out alright, I’m going to try to update as much as possible and if you need to email me privately I’ll be checking my mails every week or so, so just click the mail button above. If the writing becomes too painful then you can go straight to all the photo’s from the "Pictures" link at the top, as will all my videos.
Cheers to anyone who ends up reading this, although I’m sure it’ll become a spam paradise of abuse from friends and work colleagues..cya all in a year or so :D
This is the second time I’ve wrote this intro thing. I wrote one trying way too hard to sound the way I wish I could write. The truth is though, since my GCSE’s I haven’t had to do any proper writing what-so-ever. I did all art A-level as well as an art degree and now work as a graphic designer.
Hopefully it turns out alright, I’m going to try to update as much as possible and if you need to email me privately I’ll be checking my mails every week or so, so just click the mail button above. If the writing becomes too painful then you can go straight to all the photo’s from the "Pictures" link at the top, as will all my videos.
Cheers to anyone who ends up reading this, although I’m sure it’ll become a spam paradise of abuse from friends and work colleagues..cya all in a year or so :D
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