Jiangnong

I'll start off by saying I didn't particularly enjoy Shanghai so I'll keep this post short. Shanghai is all about shopping, art and nightlife. The first two don't interest me and the 3rd I'm trying to limit because I was travelling on a budget.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in Shanghai was walk to The Bund (the embankment in Shanghai facing the skyscrapers across the river) and after seeing the Hong Kong Island skyline at night this was unimpressive. What surprised me was as soon as I step foot on The Bund I was offered a "massage" the first of many offers walking up the Bund. I was hoping I was only approached because I was on my own as opposed to looking like a dodgy guy who has only come to Shanghai looking for a dodgy massage. Anyway I politely refused all offers and most left me alone except for one guy who followed me for a kilometre! Luckily I managed to lose him at the traffic lights.

There wasn't much else to do so I went back to the dorm and met my new room mates. An American guy, English girl and an American/Moroccan dude. There was sod all else to do in the city so we decided to go out. The hostel bar was dead so we had some pre drinks with some dodgy cheap local spirits and headed into town. All but one place was open, we had obviously come to the wrong part of the city. Anyway we went to this one place which had a few young local people in it. The cheapest drink was £10, ouch! I made that drink last as long as possible.

We played some electronic darts and I kicked everyone's asses. Then we hit the dancefloor. Zach, the American, was extremely camp and had a very unique and expressive array of moves but was great fun and he got most of the locals to join him on stage and dance with him. We danced until the lights came on about 3am.

Over the next couple days I ran out of things to do. So I just ate as much as I could as Shanghai had loads of street food stalls. I had fried soup dumplings which scoulded my mouth, fried tofu, meat sandwiches & kebabs. I really needed to do some exercise so I tried to find a swimming pool but no luck.

I met a random guy in the hostel bar, middle aged English guy who has come to China for 8 months to learn Kung Fu even though he has no interest at all in Kung Fu. Strange I know. But he says he's just doing it for fitness. Fair play to the guy. He was a little odd but was really funny. Had a really dry sense of humour. He had us in stitches about his idea using an app and mobility scooter to take drunk people home after a heavy night. And the American guy had this great idea to create an app to rate toilets while you're abroad so you can avoid the horrible squatting troughs you see at the rail way stations (basically a line down the middle you poop into and there are no cubicles for privacy, ewww).

Me and Zach chilled out in the hostel bar most nights and it started to get busier as people stuck around to join us. We met a couple Dutch guys, another American, Dutch couple (who we taught to play darts) and the English dude from before. There was a good atmosphere until a couple Eastern European boys turned up. You could tell straight away they were going to be trouble. It turned out they wanted to fight us even though we hadn't said a word to them let alone look in their direction. We were all oblivious to this but the Dutch women told us she talked him out of it. Next thing we know the 2 lads jumped the fence. We were on a rooftop bar! Anyway they somehow got down. They had no reason whatsoever to do a runner as they had paid their bar tab. Also there was an unlocked gate they could have easily walked through. Strange guys.

On the way to the airport I took the Maglev which is one of the fastest commercial trains in the world. For only £5 it took 8 mins to cover 19 miles and reached a max speed of 431 kph. Amazing! The alternative was an hour journey by metro.

That was Shanghai, not a lot to do that interested me but still met some cool people.Read more