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MeznG. In the air, on the road, river or sea again
After a bit of confusion we finally arrived at our lovely hotel in Shanghai at 2.30am. Our Wendy Wu tour guide, bless her is waiting for us in the lobby. She has packed us some sandwiches in case we were hungry and we have a beautiful room on the 11th floor. We probably would have been able to sleep anywhere because we were so tired after our early start but after a nice refreshing shower it was was nice to get into bed. The Chinese like the mattress to be hard which didn't bother us but some people were a bit grumbly in the morning. When we woke up we discovered that our hotel is part of the Shanghai Olympic stadium where the soccer and some other events where held during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Our window looks directly into the stadium playing field! After breakfast we meet up with the rest of our group. There are 28 of us altogether and our National Tour Guides English name is Vivian. Her Chinese name is Wei. She's 24 and the youngest national tour guide for the company and she will be with us for the whole tour. We are to be her Sticky Rice family and stay together so no one gets lost. After the briefing of the do's and don'ts we set of in our bus for a look around the city of Shanghai, the economic capital of China. We have a local guide named Grace to accompany us as well here and to lead us around this city. Shanghai hosted the World Expo in 2010 and so the infrastructure that was put in place to manage the 73 million people that visited is truly amazing. The population of Shanghai is 24 million and I think they all drive or ride scooters at once. It rains 300 days of the year here so we go out prepared with our jackets at all times. Our first stop is the Shanghai Museum in the People's Square was formerly a horse racing track but when gambling was made illegal on mainland China it was turned into a public park by the government. The museum is divided into rooms for the displays . There's the bronze, Jade, Chinese Minorities, Ceramics and Pottery and the Coffee shop. Our first room of choice is the coffee shop. The museum is interesting and very well set out so its easy to get around and also to understand the displays as there is an English translation of most things. Next is the Bund which is the riverside. It's know as Shanghai's equivalent to Wall Street and it's where the head offices of the Bank of China and the former HSBC and the Peace Hotel are all situated. The buildings are very European and inside are beautiful. We are free to walk along the Bund and explore the buildings and take photos of the Bund Bull. First stop, first casualties as 2 of the group don't make it to the meeting place so we leave them behind and Grace went to find them and bring them to us in a taxi. They were at the wrong meeting spot, they won't do that again. We had lunch in a floating restaurant on the Huangpu River. This river flows directly into the Yangzi River about 40km away. This restaurant is apparently booked until 2017 for weddings and functions. Our meals are served banquet style with a variety of dishes, mostly like the Chinese we are familiar with at home, a bit more westernized than what we had for the last couple of days! After lunch we go to the top if a building in the middle of the city in the fastest elevator in China. It travels 9.2m/ sec so we are on the 88th floor in about 44seconds. The view is quite good even though the day is very overcast. Down from the top, our next stop is a ride on the Maglev - the Magnetically Levitated train. It's the only train in the world that doesn't run on tracks and has a top speed of 431km/ hour. It cost so much to build it, that the Chinese will be paying for it for another 60 years. It only runs between the Pudong Eastern part of the city to the Pudong airport which is about a 90 minute drive but this will get you there in 7mins 22 seconds. We are taking the trip to the airport and return. It costs 100 Yuan / person return ( approx $20AUD). There are 2 of these trains and when they pass each other it's like a flash, impossible to photograph. It was a great experience. Unfortunately due to the cost of building it, there will be no chance of it being extended. We are taken back to the hotel for a bit of a break before dinner. Tonight we were supposed to go on a night cruise on the river but it is raining quite hard so we will hope for better weather tomorrow. Dinner is at another restaurant that caters for tour groups and once again the food is very nice and there is heaps of it. What a great day. Fastest elevator, fastest train good one!
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