Yay, today we're going to the Bund. This was something I'd been looking forward to as I'd seen photos of the Bund and all the gorgeous buildings including the famous Oriental Pearl Tower.
The Bund is in the heart of Shanghai and separates the old and new, well the river actually separate it but the Bund runs along the river on the old side.
We had about an hour here and then were heading to the Shanghai Museum and then an optional tour. Mum and I weren't doing the option (this was a tour of Shanghai) as we just wanted to do our own thing. There were about half doing the tour and half heading back to the hotel to do some washing! Woo, there was free use of the washing machines at our hotel and people thought this was fantastic. I just thought it was a waste of a day in Shanghai as tomorrow we were off on our cruise. Whatever floats your boat (ha ha) I guess.
Mum and I spent about 5 hours wandering around Shanghai seeing both sides of the river. We caught a ferry across to the otherside, where the Pearl Tower is. The ferry was 2 yuan (40c ea) and was not what we expected when we walked onto it. There were no seats, well there were about 6 seats and then it was just all open. You just stand with nothing to hold onto. The trip isn't that long, maybe 15 minutes and it's only when you're docking that you need to steady yourself.
We didn't really know where we were going so we just headed for the Pearl. There was an enormous roundabout, both car and people, just near the Pearl so we got some great photos,many many photos! We also saw the tallest building and the bottle opener building. There were a few big shopping centres, now I say big what I mean is giant, massive, huge shopping centres. The one we went into still had a lot of empty shops that were due to open at the end of the year but there were still a lot of shops. We just wanted to get some lunch but all they seem to have were restaurants we just wanted a food court. Unfortunately we ended up at Burger King, our worst meal of the trip. Later on, back on the otherside of the river, we did find a fabulous food court, we needed that earlier! I did buy a pikelet oreo icecream dessert thing and it was good, so good.
At one stage mum thought there must have been a parade on as there were so many people but, we're in Shanghai, there are always so many people :-)
I really liked Shanghai and wished we had a few days here to do more exploring. Maybe next time ;-)
We were being picked up by our bus and then heading back to the river to do a night cruise. We were the only ones who ended up staying in Shanghai so we were the only ones waiting back at the museum (which we managed to find again!). While waiting we got hassled by a few beggars. One in particular pushed mum, I had a go at him and all he said was 'bye bye, bye bye'. I know he couldn't understand me but he could definitely tell I was not happy. No one messes with my mum!
The bus collected us and off we went to the river cruise terminal. We had an hour before the cruise to grab something to eat. Hans told us that there was a Maccas and a couple of other little places but not much else. There was a Starbucks which a lot of the tour group were happy about unfortunately it was closed for cleaning!
Mum and I walked around for a bit, we didn't want Maccas, and stumbled across a food court down some stairs. Busy food court. More dumplings for us. The lady who served us even came over and tried to explain how we were meant to eat them. Obviously we were doing it wrong. You're meant to suck the liquid out before eating them. We just kept squirting it everywhere :-0
The cruise was ok but I wouldn't do it again. It was just so busy with so much pushing and shoving and so noisy. The lights of Shanghai were stunning but I think I'd rather just walk along the Bund.
Back to the hotel, pack our bags ready for tomorrow as tomorrow is CRUISE DAY!
No comments:
Post a Comment