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We arrived to Shanghai by speed train from Beijing, it took about 4hours. It was quite a pleasant journey, comfortable seats, plenty of leg room and food offered regularly but you could only get this if you spoke Chinese!
Once we got to Shanghai we got the very crowded subway, after walking the wrong way with our backpacks we finally found the right hostel and checked in at Mingtown youth hostel. The hostel was good we had our own private room with en-suite, good wifi and it was located well. Shanghai was noticeably different from Beijing very built up, shops and restaurants everywhere and everyone speaks English!!!
We went out for a meal at a local restaurant (can't remember the name) and had our first proper Chinese in china! We got sizzling beef, lamb dumplings, spring rolls (not chocolate ones ha), egg fried rice and sweet and sour pork, all of it was very yummy but did not taste like the Chinese you would get back home - it tasted better!
The next day we went off exploring shanghai, we went to the shopping centre first and looked around H&M and forever 21 to see if it was any different from the UK - our conclusion was no they just have smaller sizes! Then we went down to view bund at the waterside, it was very pretty to see the skyline of shanghai. The architecture of some of the buildings was very impressive. We stayed around the area to view the skyline at night with the lights which did not disappoint. We then walked back up through east and west Nanjing road at night to still see the trams going along packed with people, street sellers selling flying objects that are whizzing past and the smell of delicious foods. The thing I noticed about Shanghai is the energy, the streets are just as busy in the day as at night time and the people are a lot more forward in approaching you compared to Beijing.
Then next day we decided despite reading poor reviews to go and visit Shanghai zoo to see the pandas. We arrived at the zoo and were completely shocked at how awful the living conditions are for the animals, I won't go into detail as its upsetting but we both wrote strong complaints about the zoo and warned people on trip advisor not to go!
After a brief visit to shanghai it was time to leave and head to Hong Kong. I enjoyed Shanghai its very modern and I loved the liveliness of the city. It was defiantly more expensive and upcoming compared to the more traditional Beijing.
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