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Hello from Xi'an! I only just arrived here, so I thought I would let you know what I've been up to in Shanghai.
My first impressions of Shanghai: hot and crowded. It's just as hot as it was in Beijing and my train arrived during the morning rush hour so I was able to see just how many people are able to fit into a Shanghai subway car. My train from Beijing was fantastic - my options were a seat or a soft sleeper, so I opted for the latter even though I really couldn't afford it. I was on the Really Nice train - everything was new and sparkling and each person had their own television to watch (though it only had four channels and they were all in chinese!). My hostel was in a nice little area just north of the Bund and there were a lot of little restaurants about.
I managed to buy my train ticket to Xi'an (in chinese! though the ticket seller corrected every word that I said) and then walked the Bund with a Scottish girl, Sophie, and took in Pudong. There's a lot of construction going on in that area in preparation for the 2010 Shanghai Expo, so we had a bit of a time figuring out how to navigate the streets. We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at a restaurant back by the hostel that didn't speak any english or have a picture menu, and that usually isn't a problem because we can just point to what others are eating but we went at an in-between time when there weren't many others there. So they handed us a Chinese cookbook and told us to point at the dishes we wanted and they would make them for us - which they did! It was fantastic!
The second day in Shanghai, Sophie and I went to the Shanghai Museum and spent a couple hours ooh-ing and awe-ing over 6000 year old sculptures, ceramics and bronzeware. It was incredible to see what China was doing during a time when Europe was still in its infancy. It started to downpour so we spent about an hour in the musuem shop before getting tired and dashing out to find a taxi. We grabbed some noodles for lunch then went to the old part of town to see a teahouse, some beautiful gardens and a bazaar. We refused to take a taxi back because they all refused to use the meter and wanted to charge us 50 RMB for the trip back when the ride to the bazaar was only 12 RMB! So we walked back along the Bund and Sophie left to catch a ferry.
Sunday was a lazy day - I've been getting over a cold so I just did errands and rested. Sophie came back on Monday morning and we caught a train to Hangzhou, a pretty little city southwest of Shanghai. We rented bikes and rode around West Lake, which is the main attraction, bartered for pearls and fans, admired the dragon boats on the lake, ate lunch and laughed at all the Chinese tourists who were trying to take pictures of us without being noticed. Sophie stayed in Hangzhou and I returned to Shanghai to prepare for the train journey to Xi'an. I spent yesterday shopping around for items to take with me on the 16-hour train ride. I managed to book a hard-sleeper this time, which was much more affordable, though the cars are very open so there is a lot of noise and it was difficult to sleep.
Looking forward to tomorrow! I'm going to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors!
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