A True Adventure

Arriving in Shanghai was fairly straight forward. We found a left luggage place in the train station, to leave our bags whilst we looked for a hotel. This cost us £2 each for the whole day. This was a really good idea, as sometimes we have ended up walking around the city for over 2 hours searching for a place, with our bags on our backs. This is not a good idea, and always makes arriving a lot more stressful than it needs to be!

We found a hotel within 20 minutes, the Green Tree Inn. We settled in, then went back to get our bags. The station was just a 15 minute walk away.

We really liked Shanghai City from the moment we arrived. It is a very clean city with lot’s of high rise buildings,  Modern shopping centers ,markets andbeautiful small Alley ways with old traditional Chinese houses on. It is such a contrasting city, whilst parts of the city reminded us of the modern feel of Singapore other parts of the city reminded us of some of the streets in India (small alley ways, with locals chopping fruit or walking around in their pijamas, and people sorting through rubbish)

A local lady preparing her vegetables outside

It has a very exciting feel to the city, with so much going on both day and night. It was very busy whilst we were there because of the 2010 Expo (world fair) being held there this year. The hotel prices were a lot higher than usual because of this.

On our first day in Shanghai we went to Wujiang Road (Nanging West rd Station). This is known for it’s snacks, and shops. It is just a small street, but packed with lot’s of traditional chinese/western restaurants, snack bars and small shops. If you are lucky you will be walking down the street just when they are handing out all the free samples of foods, like we we were. Although this wasn’t Chinese food, it was krispy kreme donuts:)

Wujiang Road

We also went to see a free Art Exhibition, not far from Wujiang road. It was an exhibition of traditional Chinese Art. A lot of the museums and Art galleries cost money to get into, so we were lucky to come across this exhibtion and it was well worth seeing.

This is an example of some of the art we saw.

Chinese Art

On our 2nd day in Shanghai we decided to walk down to the Huangpu river (the largest river in Shanghai). It divides the city into two regions:Pudong(east) and Puxi (west). We were on the Puxi side, looking across the river to Pudong. The river front is both stunning in the day and night. As you are walking along the river, you can see the high rise buildings across the river on one side, then on your other side you have the Bund, which houses 52 buildings of various architectural styles such as Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neo-Classical, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco. These buildings are mostly banks and custom houses.

The Bund at night time (Along Shanghai Huangpu River)

It was fairly quite during the day when we walked to the river front, but in the evening it was packed. Maybe because everyone was at the visiting the Expo during the day? It was still worth the visit even though we could hardly move walking!

Paul at Huangpu River Front

We wanted to go and visit Yuyuan Garden, so we took the subway to Yuyuan Garden station. When we exited the subway station it was packed with locals and tourists. This is a huge shopping area, packed with markets andshops. We never did find the garden, all though we know it does exist. After reading on the internet, we see that other people also struggled to find the garden. This is a great place to see, all though it was a little over packed with tourists for my liking! Also people hassle you a lot here, trying to get you to buy things. It is not easy to relax andstroll aroundthe shops, like we wanted to. People stand on the streets asking you do you want a watch or a bag. I guess they must get commission or something for taking you to shops.

We also visited Peoples Square, which is where you will find many department stores, restaurants, museums and modern shopping centers.

After researching on the internet we decided to go to Taikang  Road. If you’re in the mood for some shopping but are tired of touts shoving fake watches in your face, head to Taikang Road. This is a great place to stroll and relax, whilst you observe Shanghai life at it’s best! You will be able to see locals just going about their everyday life: chopping up fruit, washing clothes, hanging clothes on the line andselling food on street vendors. Then find alley 210 and wander down the lane. It’s full of shops and cafes, where you can just look and relax, with no pressure! This place is not to be missed! One of my favourite spots in the city!

Ruth on one of the Alley's off Taikang Road

We both had a great time in Shanghai. It’s hard saying which place we liked most in China, as everywhere is so different, but we’d definatley put Shanghai at the top.

We have now landed in Tokyo. We got a flight from Shanghai Pudong airport to Narita Tokyo airport this morning at 11.50am. We landed at 15:45pm Japanese local time. (Japan is 8 hours ahead of GMT) We flew with JAL. It was nice flying with one of the one world airlines, rather than just Air Asia budget flights. We were fasinated with the screens on the plane that showed live video footage from the front of the plane. We were also served a meal on the flight, although I asked them for vegetarian, as I have booked on as vegetarian on all the flights, but they said the option today was meat only? So I ate the salad.

We had a really smooth arrival in Tokyo, which I was surprisedby. I thought we would find it really difficult, but everything was really straight forward. We had already booked a hotel (Kangaroo Hotel), which was a great decision! We got the train from the airport, on the Keisei line to Nippori station, then we had to change at Nippori for the JR line to Minami Senju. The tickets costs us 1300 Yen (£9.70) each from the airport to our hotel (60 Minute journey) Our hotel was a 10 minute walk from the Minami Senjustation, which we found no problem.

We have now settled into our hotel. It is a really nice small hotel. All the rooms are Japanese style, with just a matress on the floor. The bathrooms are shared. There is a microwave, kettle and small kitchen area on each floor. There is internet in all the rooms and also 2 Apple Mac’s downstairs which we are free to use. There are also washing machines and dryers on the bottom floor. The hotel is very minimalistic, like a lot of Japanese traditional homes. The member of staff who greeted us at the reception is very helpful and extremley friendly. We have certainly been welcomed into Japan with smiles so far. People seem very helpful and when we have been looking at our map, locals have helped us and pointed us in the right direction. 

Well we best get to sleep, we want to get up early tomorrow. We are really excited about exploring the city. We will have to cram so much  in to the short time we have here, just 4 days.

We will add pictures from Shanghai as soon as possible

Ruth and Paul