Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai in the morning and quickly figured out which bus was ours into the city. We were going to take the worlds fastest train, however it was a little more than we wanted to spend and would only take us to the northern suburbs of Shanghai, where we would have to then take a taxi to our hostel. The bus was relatively quick and gave us a good opportunity to see some of the cities sites. When the bus attendant called to us, specifically us, in broken English, we knew it was our stop. Once off the bus we looked up in the skyline for a building with a pointy top – we were told that our hostel was right next to the JW Marriot Hotel and according to our city map acquired at the airport the Marriot had a pointy top. We walked a couple of blocks and found the Marriot but we still were not sure where our hostel was until we saw the Hostel International sign down an ally. Our hostel was located near a nice wine bar, which at first we thought might be the hostel, but were quickly directed further down the ally. When we arrived, we checked in and were shown to our room, through a beautiful courtyard with little ponds of fish and bridges that traversed them. There was also a nice little bar/cafe, pool table and movie room. The whole place was designed in gray stone and dark wood with a lot of red finishes, giving it a traditional Chinese look. We stayed in a six bedroom dorm with four other guys, one was older and just visiting, another was a designer in Shanghai selling a new kind of travel bag – who also partied like there was no tomorrow, with another guy who had been at the hostel for a while and then there was a guy who was traveling around Asia looking for a place to settle and teach English – he was also from Washington DC and we had a great time talking with him about our possible plans for next year. After settling in we set out armed with “Three Days in Shanghai” a guide Jimmy tore out of a United Airlines magazine of the highlights of Shanghai. Our first order of business however was to go to the Park Hyatt Hotel and ask them about our tickets and permits to Tibet, where we would be going when we meat mom and John in about ten days. The concierge informed us of the difficulty but we came to the conclusion with mom, who is always cool and confident, that we could get it done further down the road. After that was done a highlight in the guide book that was very close to the Hyatt was the Shanghai Sex Museum, boasting all kinds of sex toys and histories throughout the ages – Jimmy was quite excited to go but after about an hour of searching for it we finally asked where it was and were told that it had been closed only a month before to further improve Shanghais image for the upcoming expo. The face of Shanghai was totally being altered for the Expo, which could be equivalent to the historic worlds far. New construction was everywhere; it was evident that China was not being negatively affected by the current financial crisis that was damaging so many other markets.

The rest of our four days in Shanghai were spent getting Chinese massages from blind masseurs, finding the perfect dumplings, and taking in all the history from the English Bund and the French Concession. On our third day we asked our hostel to book train tickets for us to travel to Xian the next day, which they did and the next day we were off. We got a taxi to the train station early and thank goodness we did because in the middle of the Shanghai express way our taxi got into a collision with another vehicle. There was much yelling in Chinese and much wondering on our part what to do – our taxi driver’s idea was that we just walk to the train station from the expressway. Jimmy did not like this idea and so he hailed us a taxi and so we grabbed our bags and hopped into the first one that stopped. There was a little confusion with the language at first but then with our guidebooks help we were off to the train station again. When we arrived it was like a cattle yard people pushing us through winding gates and not knowing if we were ever going in the right direction. “Jimmy called back to me do you think this is right?” I told him it was, I saw it on a You Tube video two travelers took of there experience at the Shanghai train station. Once we went through the phony security we were able to find our gate or waiting room as it is referred to in China. There were tons of people and “stuff”. We were not sure when we would board the train but we were there about an hour in advance. About 45 min before the train was to depart everyone in the room got up at what seemed like the same time and charged for the ticket counter. I healed onto Jimmy’s backpack and we were pushed and pulled until we finally handed the agent our ticket and we were on our first train of China. All I was thinking was I hope its not Chinese trains do not have a large infestation on cockroaches like some Vietnamese trains. When we got on the train there were no cockroaches but we did find out shortly that Jimmy and I were in separate compartments and we had two upper bunks to boot. I looked at Jimmy, and all I could think we seriously! Car accident and now we are not even in the same cabin. Jimmy said it would be fine and that we would just go hang out in the dinning car. After the train got underway we went to the dinning car and ordered a soda and started to play cards after two games are drinks were almost empty and the train attendants kicked us out, telling us in broken English we could not hang out in the dinning car, as we shortly realized the dinning car was not for travelers it was a place for the train staff to hang out eat and drink and party, something we would encounter over and over again on Chinese trains, frustrating! We went back to our cabins and tried to get some sleep, which Jimmy was the only one of the two of us who was able. Xi’an and a nice double room were calling my name!