Sunday, February 11th.
Wow, so here I am in crazy, crazy 'ole Shanghai. Today was spent acclimatising myself to the surroundings etc, so this is gonna be a less chronological account than usual.
Well, one of the interesting things that I hadn't really thought about - they drive on the right side of the road (that is, not the left side, no- oh, forget it) in Mainland China. A fact I actually didn't notice until about 15 minutes into the bus ride last night, but what can I say, I had bigger fish to fry at the time. Still on the roads, there's a heck of a lot of bicycles and little scooter type vehicles buzzing around the place here - and they seem to think that they're both cars and pedestrians, riding on either the road or the pavement depending on which is more convenient.
The Hostel I'm staying at seems really good. They don't really have single rooms, only doubles and dorms, so before I left, I booked a double room with toilet and shower, and I'm glad I did. The room is massive (maybe just by comparison with the one I just left in HK), and right in the front corner of the triangular shaped building - toilet and shower are separate from each other (again, I'm easily impressed by being able to shower without getting the toilet wet, given where I've been staying the previous 10 days :p), air conditioning in the room (good, as it's quite cool here atm), TV, phone etc - It's almost more like a hotel room than a hostel, though for some reason, it has the single hardest mattress I've ever slept on. Either way, accomodations are very nice, and the place itself has a real hostel feel to it.
So, getting up this morning (a little later than usual, I was dead beat after yesterday's late night), I decided to take a stroll the couple of kilometres down to the nearest Metro Station at Zhongshan Park (There's a light rail that goes right past the hostel, which is a quicker way of connecting to the metro, but I felt like the walk), and began to realise what a funny city I'd found myself in.
So Shanghai, by Chinese standards, is a rich city - second only to HK in all of China. But like everywhere else in the world, and especially in developing countries like China, the gap between rich and poor is -big-. And so Shanghai is going through a stage of growth where the city can seem a bit all over the place - First of all, there are slum areas, with self-built mud brick dwellings that appear to be being knocked down at a rate of knots. Then there are vast tracts of communist style concrete apartment blocks (at this point, to avoid getting this site blocked by the Chinese Internet Police (look them up, they really exist), I think I'm supposed to talk here about how glorious communism is :p). After that, there are the tacky apartments and suburban style houses housing the kinda upper middle class types. And right at the top is the contemporary architecture, which runs the gamut from elegant and beautiful to... well, the Oriental Pearl Tower. And that's not even mentioning The Bund (British Colonial) and the French Concession (You guess :p) Shanghai doesn't really have a single 'identity' as a city, but in a lot of ways, it's more interesting for it - you never know what you're just around the corner from - heck, this evening, I was just walking along a shopping street and there was a -canal-. Wierd stuff.
On another note, I know it's a terribly soft target, but someone really needs to organise for some bilingual people with a really good grasp of the english language to start writing signs, packaging etc etc over here. I don't want to harp on about the issue because, to be honest, I only speak 1 language, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to start ragging on people for getting English phrases wrong every once in a while, but when the tourist sign in Nanjing Rd, one of your city's biggest tourist attractions, claims that Shanghai is "An International Metropolitan.", you've gotta look into who's doing your translations.
Anyway, all up I had a fairly quiet one today - took a trip down to Nanjing Rd in order to get my head around the public transport situation, and otherwise just generally checked out the neighbourhood, but tomorrow I'm getting up to a little more - probably go hit the Bund early, maybe check out the Old Town, then with any luck, take a trip up the Jin Mao Building, China's tallest as the sun is setting. Wish me luck!
'til tomorrow.
Jono
Wow, so here I am in crazy, crazy 'ole Shanghai. Today was spent acclimatising myself to the surroundings etc, so this is gonna be a less chronological account than usual.
Well, one of the interesting things that I hadn't really thought about - they drive on the right side of the road (that is, not the left side, no- oh, forget it) in Mainland China. A fact I actually didn't notice until about 15 minutes into the bus ride last night, but what can I say, I had bigger fish to fry at the time. Still on the roads, there's a heck of a lot of bicycles and little scooter type vehicles buzzing around the place here - and they seem to think that they're both cars and pedestrians, riding on either the road or the pavement depending on which is more convenient.
The Hostel I'm staying at seems really good. They don't really have single rooms, only doubles and dorms, so before I left, I booked a double room with toilet and shower, and I'm glad I did. The room is massive (maybe just by comparison with the one I just left in HK), and right in the front corner of the triangular shaped building - toilet and shower are separate from each other (again, I'm easily impressed by being able to shower without getting the toilet wet, given where I've been staying the previous 10 days :p), air conditioning in the room (good, as it's quite cool here atm), TV, phone etc - It's almost more like a hotel room than a hostel, though for some reason, it has the single hardest mattress I've ever slept on. Either way, accomodations are very nice, and the place itself has a real hostel feel to it.
So, getting up this morning (a little later than usual, I was dead beat after yesterday's late night), I decided to take a stroll the couple of kilometres down to the nearest Metro Station at Zhongshan Park (There's a light rail that goes right past the hostel, which is a quicker way of connecting to the metro, but I felt like the walk), and began to realise what a funny city I'd found myself in.
So Shanghai, by Chinese standards, is a rich city - second only to HK in all of China. But like everywhere else in the world, and especially in developing countries like China, the gap between rich and poor is -big-. And so Shanghai is going through a stage of growth where the city can seem a bit all over the place - First of all, there are slum areas, with self-built mud brick dwellings that appear to be being knocked down at a rate of knots. Then there are vast tracts of communist style concrete apartment blocks (at this point, to avoid getting this site blocked by the Chinese Internet Police (look them up, they really exist), I think I'm supposed to talk here about how glorious communism is :p). After that, there are the tacky apartments and suburban style houses housing the kinda upper middle class types. And right at the top is the contemporary architecture, which runs the gamut from elegant and beautiful to... well, the Oriental Pearl Tower. And that's not even mentioning The Bund (British Colonial) and the French Concession (You guess :p) Shanghai doesn't really have a single 'identity' as a city, but in a lot of ways, it's more interesting for it - you never know what you're just around the corner from - heck, this evening, I was just walking along a shopping street and there was a -canal-. Wierd stuff.
On another note, I know it's a terribly soft target, but someone really needs to organise for some bilingual people with a really good grasp of the english language to start writing signs, packaging etc etc over here. I don't want to harp on about the issue because, to be honest, I only speak 1 language, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to start ragging on people for getting English phrases wrong every once in a while, but when the tourist sign in Nanjing Rd, one of your city's biggest tourist attractions, claims that Shanghai is "An International Metropolitan.", you've gotta look into who's doing your translations.
Anyway, all up I had a fairly quiet one today - took a trip down to Nanjing Rd in order to get my head around the public transport situation, and otherwise just generally checked out the neighbourhood, but tomorrow I'm getting up to a little more - probably go hit the Bund early, maybe check out the Old Town, then with any luck, take a trip up the Jin Mao Building, China's tallest as the sun is setting. Wish me luck!
'til tomorrow.
Jono
posted by Jono Russell at 2:10 AM
7 Comments:
PS:
Just a little addendum on my evening tonight that I thought might be of interest - If you're ever in China, stay -away- from the doughnuts. I grabbed some with dinner from a bakery at a supermarket tonight - yuck! it tasted kinda like sugar/burning plastic. Oh, and also, coffee cola ain't so crash hot either. I know, it's my own fault - I tried not to get the coffee cola, I really did, but curiosity got the better of me. Ｉ ｃｏｎｓｉｄｅｒ ｍｙ ｔａｓｔｅｂｕｄｓ ｍａｔｙｒｓ ｆｏｒ ａ ｎｏｂｌｅ ｃａｕｓｅ ：Ｐ
wow! take lots of pictures of the sun setting!!! how are you coping on your own? i just cannot imagine roaming around and coping by myself in another country!!! the horror night went well! lots of photos to show you, unfortunately they won't quite compare with yours... but we made a fair effort :P can't wait for your next post! later!
coffee cola? whatever will they think of next? but yes, you only have yourself to blame :P but of course, you gotta try new things overseas! all the best for tomorrow :)
Hey Jono, take some pictures of the Shanghai scooters for me riding on the footpath. How was the first day?
Can you import coffee cola? Or would that involve a guest appearance on Border Patrol?
WARNING! Any more insults against communism and we'll shut this site down! Yours sincerely,
Communist Man
Wow, communist man sounds serious. Not that I know what he's thinking... I'm certainly not communist man if that what you're all thinking as you read this.... Anyways, sounds great Jono. In opposition to your view I think the dodgy english translations are part of what makes somewhere great to visit. I mean whats the fun in a warning sign if you actually know what they're warning you against? Too bad about the doughnuts. What exactly does burning plastic taste like? Oh and I liked the addition of all the little squares which I can't replicate at the bottom of that P.S. :)
Oh really? I think I hit the wrong button on the keyboard here - the last sentence of my previous comment was "I consider my tastebuds matyrs for a noble cause". Additionally, Burning Plastic tastes like Carrefour Bakery brand doughnuts.
Y'know Dad, I might just stick a bottle of Coffee Cola in my luggage - surely it'd be fine if you declare it? It's a proper, sealed product and everything...
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