Shanghai--Nanjing Rd, the Bund & the Oriental Pearl Tower

Today was the first of our two full days in Shanghai. I didn't say in my last post that we'd given up on making our way to the hostel we'd booked. I was just too tired to go all that way with our bags. So we opted to stay at the airport hotel. There are actually two hotels here at Pudong Airport--the Motel 168 and the Ease Hotel. The two hotels are located half way in between Terminals 1 and 2. We compared prices and booked into the Motel. Then to our surprise we were taken across the circular driveway between the two hotels and given rooms in the Ease Hotel at the same discount price as the motel. We're up on the 8th floor which is non-smoking. The hotel is absolutely lovely, very modern in style and surprisingly we can't hear any airport noise! From our window I look out onto Terminal 2. If it wasn't so foggy I'd see more take-offs and landings than I do. Oh, I've just looked for both of these hotels and they don't seem to be on any websites that I could find anyway. So I'm presuming they are not ones that you can pre-book. But it's nice to know they're there.

Anyway, in the morning we went down to breakfast which we had to pay 20Y for (very cheap!). We soon discovered why it was so cheap. There really wasn't much to it--a few slices of bread--but a toaster which Harbin hadn't had--congee, fried rice, fried noodles, a spicy sweet and sour chicken--not exactly breakfast fare. After breakfast we took the maglev train (a high speed monorail) in towards Shanghai city. We had a thrilling ride and had as our fellow travellers a group of flight attendants from British Airways who were into joking and laughing. It was their first time too on the maglev and they carried on about it. The train reached a top speed of 430 kms and it tilted during its run. When another maglev train passed it there was a woosh and a bang which made me jump as it was on my side of the train.

The Maglev Train

After we got off the maglev we farewelled the Brits who were taking taxis and we took the ordinary subway into the People's Park. We visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall which contains the world's largest city model and which we visited last time. The exhibition has, of course, been updated and now devotes at least one floor to the upcoming Shanghai Expo in 2010. The buildings proposed for this expo look fantastic.

The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall

City Model of Shanghai

From the expo hall we wandered through a maze of underground boutique-type shops. Nearly all of the shops are aimed at young women in their teens and 20s and they sell clothing, jewellery, accessories, wigs, skin care products, fashionable shoes, etc etc. There is surely an oversupply in China of these types of shops. We looked for somewhere to eat and ended up in a Japanese noodle restaurant! From there we wandered down Nanjing Rd to the Bund and then took the pod like train through the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. That was an unusual experience! No, you don't see any water or what is above you. Rather they have lined the tunnel with different sorts of lights to make you feel that you are on a journey through space or through volcanic magma. Once on the other side of the river we bought tickets for the Oriental Pearl Tower and went up to the second pod of the tower for a look out over Shanghai.

The Oriental Pearl Tower from the Bund

That done we took the subway then the maglev back to the airport where we had dinner. Oh I'll leave you with this bit of puzzling Chinglish.