Shanghai

After the summer university had ended, some of the students decided to visit Shanghai before returning to Germany. Since my flight to Kuala Lumpur departs from Hangzhou, which is only 1-2 hours by train from Shanghai, and the weather was getting colder in Qingdao, I joined them. On Sunday morning we took the train and after a pleasant 6.30 hours journey we finally arrived. The first impression of the city was very good… 26 degrees! The hostel we stayed in turned out to be more like a hotel and it was definitely one of the best (if not THE best) hostel I’ve ever stayed at. It’s called “Shanghai City Central International Youth Hostel” and room rates start from 60 RMB. It’s located within 5 minutes walking distance to the Cao Yang subway station (line 4).

The next morning I went to Huangpu bus station, from where a daily shuttle bus to Xiaoshang airport (Hangzhou) leaves. The ticket cost me 100 RMB, which is a little bit more expensive than taking the train, but has the advantage that Huangpu bus station is located right next to the Nanppu bridge subway station (line 4), which means I didn’t have to change lines (which can be quite a hassle due to the lack of elevators in some stations). The shuttle bus takes around 3 hours to Xiaoshang airport and drops you right at the international departure terminal.

After I had purchased the bus ticket I went to Shanghai’s main tourist attraction – the Bund! I went there at 5 pm to take some photos of the skyline while it was not dark yet. Then I went for dinner in a nice and small restaurant, where only Chinese were eating. The food was quite cheap compared to other places in that area (even though pretty expensive if you compare it to other cities in China). But 15 RMB got me a great dinner… at least that’s what I thought then. At 6.30 pm the sun had set and I went back to the Bund to take more photos of the skyline at night. It’s amazing how different the place looks at day and night.

Pretty exhausted I decided to return to the hostel, but somehow my “not-so-good-anymore dinner” didn’t like that plan and got me desperately looking for the nearest restroom. Luckily I was well equipped with the most important thing that everyone needs to bring when travelling in China… tissues! It’s fairly easy to find a restroom but 99,9% of them don’t have any toilet paper. So always have some tissues in your pocket. What’s even better are “German quality tissues” (deutsche Qualitätstaschentücher) which soon became a rare good in Qingdao. In the end of the summer university they traded 1:4 against Chinese tissues.

On my last day in China I went to an underground “fake” market (of course, the shop owners insisted that their products were not fake at all). “Wanna buy a watch? Rolex? Cheap, CHEAP!”, “Chopsticks only 40 RMB (4,2 Euro… that’s more expensive than in Germany!), very cheap!” … even though it got quite exhausting at the market I still had fun and got some great bargains. It might be a good idea to bring a friend though, because having someone on your side when 4 shopkeepers are yelling at you simultaneously can be very helpful…