In Search of Adventure: Big Cities, Bright Lights

26/6/11 - 6/7/11

Just one more week in China before we left for country number 3. We spent our last days exploring Beijing and Shanghai, as much as my dodgy leg would let us!

We had teed up a Couch Surfing host in Beijing, not far from the host's place we stayed at last time we were in the city. Unfortunately, due to a plane delay, our mobile being pickpocketed, my leg slowing us down and a very confused taxi driver we didn't arrive at their apartment til after midnight and weren't able to ring and warn them. We tentatively knocked on their apartment door and after some clunking sounds the door opened to two very bleary eyed and half asleep people - whoops! We felt really bad but Adam and Laura were very hospitable and welcomed us in.

Cuandixia

Beijing was steaming hot, and our shared single bed in the lounge room was a bit like sleeping in an oven. Still, it was a good place to relax for a couple of days, without the expense of a private room or the lack of privacy of a dorm, and give my leg a chance to heal. We got to catch up with Manon and Arnaud, the French couple that we got along well with in Mongolia, in Beijing, and take them to "Mr Shi's Dumplings", a great little joint in one of the hutongs. Adam and Laura also included us in their regular Couch Surfer all-you-can-eat pizza and movie night, different to have a totally western style evening.

We did a day trip out of Beijing, about 90km west to a little town called Cuandixia. Getting there was a bit of a challenge, the train was easy but finding out where the bus left from while trying to stay dry in an absolute downpour was more difficult. It was worth it though, a lovely village on a sloping hill set against a backdrop of mountains with stone houses set around quaint courtyards, all about 400 years old. As with most places in China, local tourists are a given and the village caters for it, but there were less crowds than many places and we had our lunch undisturbed in a quiet courtyard served by a sweet Chinese lady who spoke no English but made a real effort to understand our charades. We even got fresh picked zucchini from her garden.

CRH - Beijing to Shanghai

My leg wasn't really behaving in Beijing after the Op, maybe because of the humidity, so we took it pretty easy to avoid it swelling up too much (and potential explosion??), which meant missing out on going to the Great Wall - very disappointing. We checked out the Police History Museum instead, more interesting than it sounds though we would have liked to have been given ALL the translations in English instead of the ones that the powers-that-be thought we should have. We did some wandering around the hutongs as well and tried some fried bananas from tourist food stall - yum!

The next day we left for Shanghai. We tried to get cheap train tickets but only the more exxy ones for the new China Rail Highspeed (CRH) were available for the date we needed them. Travelling on the new bullet train was pretty cool and only took 6 hrs to travel over 1000km, going at speeds up to 300kmh! The digital display even told us how exactly how fast we were going at each moment.

We arrived at our next couch host's place at a much more reasonable time. This time we'd organised to stay with a local professional couple and their two kids in a gated community about 40mins outside Shanghai central, by train and foot. We were asked not to tell anyone in the community that we were couch surfers because apparently the locals were worried about any strangers in the area and we were very obvious being the only white people around. The kids, Mickey 6 years old and Renee 11 years, were both completely fluent in English and fun to hang out with. Renee taught us how to use a Chinese abacus to do equations and Mickey showed off his mental arithmetic skills - smart kids!

Strangely doctored looking pic of Pudong, its not!

Shanghai was even more humid and ridiculously hot than Beijing, around 36c during the day but the worst thing was that it didn't cool below 30+ at night, yuck! Lucky we had air con in the room we stayed in plus a bamboo bed cover (surprisingly comfortable), kindly lent to us by Mickey.

The first touristy thing we did in Shanghai was a Big Bus tour of the Bund and Pudong areas. It was a good introduction to Shanghai and we were amazed at how different it was from everywhere else we'd been in China - clean, ordered, tidy but definitely not as much character! We also checked out the Shanghai Art Gallery.

Tongli

The next morning we were up early and caught the Metro and a bus to Tongli, a town/tourist attraction about 125km from town. It was the hottest day yet and my leg was quite swollen so we took it pretty easy but we did manage to check out some gorgeous old palaces and the Sex Culture Museum which was housed in a gorgeous garden surrounded by lovely old stone buildings. We had some yummy Korean food for dinner, thanks to the english speaking waitress who kindly translated the menu for us.

Sightseeing tunnel, talk about odd!

We left Suzie's place the next morning to spend our last night in China in a dorm room at Ming Town Hiker Hostel which was closer to the city. We spent our last full day wandering around the tourist bazaar in Fuyuan and then walked along the Bund. The smog had got worse so we only got hazy views of Pudong across the river. We then took the Tourist Sightseeing Tunnel under the river in a small unmanned electric rail car, a strangely surreal experience of psychedelic lights, random voice overs and inflatable dolls. Even though a storm was brewing we decided to head up to the flashy Cloud 9 Bar in the Jinmao tower on the 87th (top) floor. We weren't exactly dressed for the location but we paid their exorbitant drinks prices so they didn't mind. It was crazy to be up that high, like the view from an airplane rather than a building! The storm looked pretty impressive from up there, we took our time with our cocktails and got an even better view when the rain stopped.

The next morning we headed to the airport, picking up some delicious rambutans on the way, and said goodbye to China!