So after an extremely welcome and necessary nights sleep I dragged my self out of bed and sampled the Regal Hotel's breakfast buffet. I was pretty restrained and just ate a mountain of fruit combined with a few croissants and Danish pastries!
The first stop on today's tourist trek was the Longhua Pagoda, which I realised I could walk to from my hotel and would therefore enable me to burn off some of the breakfast calories. Also I thought it would be a good idea to see a bit of cliched China. To be honest the Pagoda was unimpressive but the tourist trap market nearby lived up to expectations in terms of the tat that was on sale.
After the Pagoda I once again went the wrong way on the Metro (too many names beginning with X), but sorted my self out and made it to Pudong eventually. Pudong is the space age part of Shanghai with lots of new buildings and new ones going up all the time. It's also the home of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower which has got to be Shanghai's most photographed landmark. Pudong itself, as you might expect, has a very different feel to the older parts of Shanghai. For a start the streets are wider and quieter.
long After taking a few snaps of the some of the skyscrapers, including the current tallest one (Jinmao Tower) and the future tallest one right next door, I headed to the Super Brand Mall. This is, in a nutshell, an very big shopping mall! It's also where I had lunch and experienced xiao long bao (steamed dumplings) for the first time. More about that when I post about my Shanghai food experiences in detail
After lunch I crossed back over(or rather under) the Huangpu River and went to Xintiandi. This is an area of old houses which have been preserved and gentrified and are now the location for a few very upmarket restaurants and shops. Nearby was the Dongtai Lu antiques market (how do you know the stuff for sale is antique?) and Fuxing Park. The antiques market seemed to be be the kind of place that would appeal to gullible foreign tourists wanting to own a bit of China. The park was more interesting especially the kite flyers. I was just amazed at how high the kites got.
I caught the Metro back to my hotel in the peak rush hour time, this would not be a mistake I would repeat! The people were jammed in the carriages like sardines. You didn't have to worry about holding on to anything because you were wedged in so tightly. The worst bit was trying to get out the train when it reached my stop. It really was a case of everyman for himself as I barged my way out of the carriage.
I had a quick turnaround at the hotel and was soon on the Metro again (this time much less busy) as I went to the French Concession for dinner. I'd narrowed down my 'dining options' to two restaurants. The safe option was an Indian restaurant where I figured they would definitely have an English menu. The riskier option was a restaurant serving Uighur food. This is the cuisine of China's Muslim Uighur minority who live in the northwest Taklamakan desert. I scoped out the Uighur restaurant and saw that there were in fact some Europeans in there so I figured I'd be OK. When I was in the restaurant I realised that they spoke Mandarin, so maybe things wouldn't be as straightforward as I'd anticipated! Fortunately there were English translations in the menu, although some of them were a bit obscure. It was a bit pot luck what I order, but the food was really good - all washed down with some Muslim beer!
I had a bit of a post meal stroll to People's Square and then got the Metro back to the hotel.
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