Showing posts with label shanghai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shanghai. Show all posts
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 3, 2011
Oct 28, 2010
About Shanghai - Day 23
This being our last day in Shanghai, I thought I'd compare it a bit with Beijing (and Nanjing) before checking out.
It is said that Shanghai's the place to visit when you're tired of old temples, dusty tombs and small alleys.
I agree, and we are most definitely not tired of 'old China' yet, so Shanghai has left us longing about rural China and hikes in the countryside, or at least a pair of jeans and high heels so we'd fit in.
Shanghai doesn't quite feel like 'China', at least not like the China we're used to. Beijing was huge, but it didn't feel like it - the streets were narrow, the buildings not that high, and little shops everywhere. Even the smallest Hutong street would provide it's residents with everything they needed; fruit market, cloth stores, hairsalons, internet cafes and public toilets. We would not once have had to walk more than 20 meters from our hostel (the same goes for Nanjing) to find everything we needed, and more.
Shanghai on the other hand... Shanghai is a big city, and Shanghai FEELS big. The distance's are long, the roads are wide and never ending, the skyscrapers, well, 'scrape the sky'. And stores are gathered into huge malls instead of being spread everywhere. All in all, Shanghai sort of feels like a big Western capitol, considering the layout.
Oh, and the metro system.... it's huge. However grateful for it's simplicity, we are so tired of the subway.
And, either we've gotten more used to feeling like giants, or people in Shanghai are taller than in Beijing and Nanjing. And wear more make-up as well. (According to one of our roomies in Nanjing, girls rarely wear make-up before turning 25 or 30)
Since we are about to check out, and starting to get rather hungry, we'll write more about our Tongli adventure next time we get to a computer. One thing I will miss about Shanghai is the food. The cheap Sushi (will probably have to stack up with Sushi for the 14 hour train ride), Megabite (which Sophia already wrote about) and our nextdoor Indian restaurant, where we will be heading now.
So long Shanghai, next stop Wuhan!
//H
It is said that Shanghai's the place to visit when you're tired of old temples, dusty tombs and small alleys.
I agree, and we are most definitely not tired of 'old China' yet, so Shanghai has left us longing about rural China and hikes in the countryside, or at least a pair of jeans and high heels so we'd fit in.
Shanghai doesn't quite feel like 'China', at least not like the China we're used to. Beijing was huge, but it didn't feel like it - the streets were narrow, the buildings not that high, and little shops everywhere. Even the smallest Hutong street would provide it's residents with everything they needed; fruit market, cloth stores, hairsalons, internet cafes and public toilets. We would not once have had to walk more than 20 meters from our hostel (the same goes for Nanjing) to find everything we needed, and more.
Shanghai on the other hand... Shanghai is a big city, and Shanghai FEELS big. The distance's are long, the roads are wide and never ending, the skyscrapers, well, 'scrape the sky'. And stores are gathered into huge malls instead of being spread everywhere. All in all, Shanghai sort of feels like a big Western capitol, considering the layout.
Oh, and the metro system.... it's huge. However grateful for it's simplicity, we are so tired of the subway.
And, either we've gotten more used to feeling like giants, or people in Shanghai are taller than in Beijing and Nanjing. And wear more make-up as well. (According to one of our roomies in Nanjing, girls rarely wear make-up before turning 25 or 30)
Since we are about to check out, and starting to get rather hungry, we'll write more about our Tongli adventure next time we get to a computer. One thing I will miss about Shanghai is the food. The cheap Sushi (will probably have to stack up with Sushi for the 14 hour train ride), Megabite (which Sophia already wrote about) and our nextdoor Indian restaurant, where we will be heading now.
So long Shanghai, next stop Wuhan!
//H
Oct 26, 2010
Shanghai - day 20&21
The train trip from Nanjing to Shanghai (the very expensive train
trip) was so comfortable that we all thougt that 75min was too short a
time to fully enjoy it. The seats were soft, there was room for our
legs, nobody smoked and the toilet was the cleanest since we don't
know when! But when the train travels at a speed of almost 350km/h
it's no wonder the distance between the two cities felt so much
shorter than it really is.
When we arrived we somehow managed to find our way to our hostel, only
equipped with the Lonely Planet and the address of our hostel(Beehome
Hostel). The room is big and we have our own bathroom, which always is
a big plus, but when we arrived it seemed as if our roomate had
brushed her hair EVERYWHERE. There were long, dark hairs in my bed, on
the floor and in the bathroom. Luckily they thouroghly cleaned the
room today and since our roomate left for the Expo at 4Am, we haven't
seen her again. So we hope she's left and given no more opportunities
to spread her hairs all over the room. We loved our other roomate
though. Yasmine from Taiwan was even nice enough to let me try one of
her face masks (no words can describe it, you'll have to wait for the
pictures).
We spent the whole day yesterday walking around in Shanghai. Eating
cheap sushi(the leftovers became our breakfast), strolling down the
Bund and looking up a foodplace called Megabite with an interesting
concept. You choose what raw ingredients you want and then they cook
them for you, right in front of you. We ate so mady different kinds of
tofu that we could barely walk. China really is the promised land of
tofu!
..and yes, to you mothers who so kindly suggested that we'd look up
the Expo when in Shanghai; we know that it's here and we actually went
there today. We saw the que for the tickets, outside the area, and
decided that the 200 yuan each could be better spent than queing all
day long. But the Expo is advertised everywhere, so nobody can visit
Shanghai and be ignorant of it.
This morning we booked a day trip to Tongli, "a lovely canal village
where a disappearing lifestyle of slow living still exists". Hmm,
we'll see about that with all the tourists it's attracting... So
tomorrow morning, at 8:30AM, we're heading towards Tongli on our first
bus trip. Exciting.
trip) was so comfortable that we all thougt that 75min was too short a
time to fully enjoy it. The seats were soft, there was room for our
legs, nobody smoked and the toilet was the cleanest since we don't
know when! But when the train travels at a speed of almost 350km/h
it's no wonder the distance between the two cities felt so much
shorter than it really is.
When we arrived we somehow managed to find our way to our hostel, only
equipped with the Lonely Planet and the address of our hostel(Beehome
Hostel). The room is big and we have our own bathroom, which always is
a big plus, but when we arrived it seemed as if our roomate had
brushed her hair EVERYWHERE. There were long, dark hairs in my bed, on
the floor and in the bathroom. Luckily they thouroghly cleaned the
room today and since our roomate left for the Expo at 4Am, we haven't
seen her again. So we hope she's left and given no more opportunities
to spread her hairs all over the room. We loved our other roomate
though. Yasmine from Taiwan was even nice enough to let me try one of
her face masks (no words can describe it, you'll have to wait for the
pictures).
We spent the whole day yesterday walking around in Shanghai. Eating
cheap sushi(the leftovers became our breakfast), strolling down the
Bund and looking up a foodplace called Megabite with an interesting
concept. You choose what raw ingredients you want and then they cook
them for you, right in front of you. We ate so mady different kinds of
tofu that we could barely walk. China really is the promised land of
tofu!
..and yes, to you mothers who so kindly suggested that we'd look up
the Expo when in Shanghai; we know that it's here and we actually went
there today. We saw the que for the tickets, outside the area, and
decided that the 200 yuan each could be better spent than queing all
day long. But the Expo is advertised everywhere, so nobody can visit
Shanghai and be ignorant of it.
This morning we booked a day trip to Tongli, "a lovely canal village
where a disappearing lifestyle of slow living still exists". Hmm,
we'll see about that with all the tourists it's attracting... So
tomorrow morning, at 8:30AM, we're heading towards Tongli on our first
bus trip. Exciting.
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