China & Taiwan Part I
“So welcome to China! Where, there are more people than in any other country, where there is one time zone across what should be many, and where oolong tea is called – just tea”
By Shri & Firuza
It’s not been long since our last trip (Israel, Palestine, Jordan & Ukraine) and we’re very excited to bring you the latest update from the one and only People’s Republic of China! As you may know by now, we’re on a mission to see the 7 wonders of the world by January 2020 – a self-set mission which we are now committed to achieve. China is home to the 4th Wonder for us – The Great Wall, and as usual the trip provided us with plenty of food for thought in terms of amazing sights, culture, technology advancements and plenty of amazing experiences and interesting people along the way.
So join us for a journey that includes; walking on a Wonder of the World, eating things you didn’t think could be eaten, being photographed slyly by locals, jumping off a building from the 61st floor, a stand-off with a wild boar and much much more!
Pre-Travel
This time the story actually begins in the UK where with just over a week before our flight from London to Beijing, we realized we needed a VISA to visit China as Tourists – yes even Firuza the supreme planner had missed this detail! As such we booked an appointment immediately for the next day at the Chinese Visa Application Centre in London – note this is where you need to apply for and collect the VISA (not at the embassy). The centre was extremely busy and tensions seemed high as we entered, predominantly it seemed, due to people queueing up in a line only to be told afterwards that they needed to have more information and then being sent away to obtain this before queueing again. However, there was an upbeat staff member who was doing his best to calm nerves, telling jokes and assuring people that there were worse things in life than queuing up in a long line to go to China;
“At least we are all alive right? Things could be much worse”.
His techniques seemed to work and nobody argued with him – whether that be because they agreed with what he was saying or because they were too depleted from constantly queueing up we’re not sure. In any case, we made it to the front of the line only to be also sent away – we had brought what we considered sufficient documentation based on the website instructions but were now told that we needed to provide details of the accommodation we were to stay at during our travels. At this stage we hadn’t booked anything and so had to book our first place then and there and make a print out (two copies – one for each of us) to submit as proof. We did this quickly, eventually got through the first stage and were provided an appointment at one of the kiosk windows. Although questioned several times where we would be staying and asked for a detailed list of each hostel location we got through in the end (we did have to pretend we would be booking the other places as we’d only booked the Beijing accommodation thus far). The VISAs were to be ready to collect in 4 working days – close call but we got them just in time!
The next obstacle was to find a way to get around the ‘Great Fire Wall of China’! As you may or may not be aware, there is a lot of censorship in China, especially when it comes to internet content and in particular social media. As such there are a number of websites, apps etc. that are blocked in mainland China (including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google etc.). Doing some research, we learned that this would be possible to bypass using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection. We managed to find the VPN with good reviews and installed it and are happy to say it has worked well out there – much to Firuza’s relief as she thought she would have to go periods longer than 24 hours without Instagram – can you imagine! For anyone interested in going to China feel free to reach out to us directly regarding the VPN – we won’t advertise it here in case it leads to that provider somehow being blocked…
And that’s it – VISA sorted, VPN sorted and a bag of clothes and snacks. We had all we needed to manage a 3 week trip to China!
Beijing
Arrival
The flight (layover in Moscow) was uneventful which is unusual for us, but we were glad to land in one piece albeit on a Sunday morning just before 2am. This was the first time we ever had someone waiting for us with a plaque with our names on it (Well it was just Firuza’s name on this occasion). Nevertheless, it made us feel quite special that you could get off a plane halfway around the world (ok it’s a bit more than half), walk out from baggage collection and have some stranger waiting for you, with your name displayed so that the first thing every other passenger sees is your name. We knew that this was just the taxi person associated with our hostel, but for a minute it was nice to just think from a different perspective – it was like being a Presidential candidate and having a supporter hoist your name above the crowd (Presidential and not Prime Minister, as nobody in the UK seems to get that into individual candidates – maybe there’s a reason…), or like being a musician and having your fans display your name at a concert minus the “we love you!” part. It has to be said these thoughts only occurred within Shri’s mind and not Firuza’s even though it was her name on the plaque. It appears he will now resort to assuming her identity when it suits him – something perhaps for her to watch out for. Anyway, back to China and the story.
The cab driver guided us back to the car, often walking in front of cars where there was no pedestrian crossing and realizing late that the cars would not stop for him and so we had a very back and forth, knee-jerk reaction like trek to the car. Before we got to the car, he decided he really needed to go to the toilet and so left us after gesturing to his private area and running off. He didn’t really speak English but once he returned a few minutes later we then knew we’d been right with our toilet assumption. And then off we went to the hostel for some much needed rest!
The subway
So welcome to China! Where, there are more people than in any other country, where there is one time zone across what should be many, and where oolong tea is called – just tea.
We decided to take it easy the first day and only go to the Summer Palace and Lama Temple. We made our way to the subway, taking note of the shops and streets in the local area. We did note that every few minutes of walking you would hear a sound as if someone were about to retch, followed by a man (we didn’t see any women do this) spitting onto the ground. This happened with great frequency in Beijing and we eventually got accustomed to it, putting it down to pollution in the air. We hopped on the subway at Qianmen which was a short walk from where we were staying. It’s worth a trip in itself to China just to explore the Beijing subway system which we found intriguing. Firstly there were automatic doors on the station platforms in line with where the train doors would open. This isn’t unlike the stations on the London Underground in parts of South London; however this is the case for all stations in Beijing. In addition to this there are arrows on the floor which tell you exactly where to enter so you know where to stand and wait before the train comes – quite useful as you can prep yourself in advance. Before you even get to the platforms your bags need to go through an X-ray machine and each passenger to be needs to walk through a metal detector and be subsequently scanned by the guards. We noticed that after they screen you and give you the all clear they continue to lightly hit you from behind with the detector devices as if you may suddenly have something you shouldn’t once you’ve been cleared, almost as if playing a game of ‘who does the most scans on one person’.
Once on the trains we discovered a few innovative features; firstly above each set of doors is a light which indicates which side the doors will open on. This is not a revelation but it is nice to know which side to prepare to exit from if you’re in a rush and the carriage is full. Secondly, there was a flashing light which indicates the next stop on the line as well as which direction you are heading in. For foreigners who don’t speak Mandarin this was especially useful and allowed us to navigate the underground with ease after about 5 minutes of being on it (the station names are shown in both Mandarin and English). There were also TV screens on the actual train, and on the second train there was a kid’s show (we assume it was for kids) that had multiple vegetable characters including a potato and aubergine. At some point it switched over to President Xi Jinping addressing a room full of military personnel to applause but we couldn’t hear any of the sound.
Before we got off the final train (and we had made several line changes) an older chap sitting next to Firuza had his phone go off. You might ask, what is remarkable about that and the answer is nothing really (plenty of underground systems have reception for phones now and or Wi-Fi connections). However, this was not just any ringtone that went off – it was Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Because of you’! We both looked at each other in surprised amusement that this man had not only come across Kelly Clarkson in China, but that of all ringtones he had picked this to be his! “I’ll never walk too far from the sidewalk, because of you” was what we heard before he answered the call and we shortly exited the train thereafter, discussing that ringtone before any talk about the advanced level of the subway.
The Summer Palace, Olympic Stadium and Mall
The Summer Palace, located on the west part of Beijing was an imperial garden during the Qing (final) dynasty of China and is composed of several lakes and gardens around the palaces.
We spent a number of hours here which is not surprising given how vast the grounds are. We also noted that the river that runs through it as well as a nearby lake was completely frozen. And while we’re on the topic, Beijing was below freezing even during the day and is to be expected during December. There were a good number of shops located within the Summer Palace grounds too as well as several places to eat. One of the shop owners tried to persuade Firuza to come into hers, by trying to play the unique card but failing spectacularly: “Everything in here is made in China” she said optimistically.
Given that probably over 60% of everything Firuza over owned (minus IKEA furniture) is made in China this did not have the desired effect the shop owner had hoped for and so we moved on. We could have probably spent another day in the Palace purely because of its size and decided that if we were to come back we’d try and do it in spring or summer to see how it differs as we’re sure it would be beautiful then.
Next we headed to the Olympic stadium known as the Birds Nest where Usain Bolt famously announced himself to the world winning his first Olympic gold medals. Shri tried a couple of sprint/Bolt poses outside the stadium but was laughed at by a number of locals so stopped shortly afterwards having got his photos already. Outside the stadiums there were a lot of people selling honey coated apples on sticks so we figured why not? We actually thought this was quite good, minus the pips still inside – well worth a try and available in most big cities in China (so most cities).
We decided to head for some food and found a shopping mall in the vicinity. It has to be said, this mall was amazing! It had everything you could imagine! From the range different shops, restaurants, a basketball court in the very middle to burn off the food, stores with extremely cute toys, vending machines selling coconuts and time-out karaoke machines this was an unforgettable experience. We must have walked around the place several times before finding a place to eat after witnessing a dance off between some kids and attempting to jump into the karaoke machine (we failed at this because we couldn’t pay using Wechat – but more on payments in China later). We decided to pretend to sing in there for a minute to make the experience count though!
Not many people spoke English in this mall – we noted this when we tried to buy a thermal flask in one of the stores and struggled to get a question answered. However, one of the staff simply used an app on his phone to interpret what we were saying and translate it into text he could read. He then answered the question in text and we made our purchase. The same app would come to our aid at dinner time.
Having both ordered spicier meals than we had anticipated, Shri was struggling with his chilli bullfrog soup and needed some rice to take away the after sensation. He asked one of the waiters if they could bring a bowl of rice and they didn’t understand and so whipped out their phone, opened the translation app and got him to talk into it
“I would like a bowl of rice” Shri said, feeling proud of himself
‘I would like a bowl of ice’ the device wrote back. Encouraged by how close the device had come to understanding him, Shri tired again more loudly
“I would like a bowl of rice”!
‘I would like a bowl of eyes’ the machine wrote back!
Well, this was not what he wanted. China’s reputation of being able to eat almost anything precedes it here, and Shri became quite worried that a bowl of eyes may well soon be joining the table to compliment the spicy soup. Luckily the waiter had a hunch what he was after and asked via the device if he wanted a bowl of rice.
“Yes” Shri almost shouted in relief!
The rice helped and we ate the rest of the meal peacefully, the rice cancelling out part of the spice
And so it was a productive, busy and interesting first day in Beijing and China. As we nodded off to sleep that night, resting ahead of our trip to the Great Wall, Shri couldn’t get that song out of his head before eventually dozing off:
“I’ll never walk to close to the sidewalk, because of you”!
The Great Wall of China
One of the modern wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China, constructed to deter Mongolian invasions stands at approximately 21000km long. Over a million people are believed to have died during the construction, working with little to no water in sometimes baking conditions, with the overall construction process taking over 200 years to complete.
There are numerous tours offered from Beijing, and various options of which portion you can visit (unless you want to trek the whole thing). We went to the Badaling section of the wall which we had heard would be less busy, together with group of about 10 people. The driver told us we had 3 hours to walk a total of 6km, from 1st to 7th watchtower and back. Looking around at our group, we spotted 3 American girls with cute earmuffs and quickly earmarked them to be the ones who wouldn’t make it all the way. They didn’t.
In fact, only half of the group did. It was a relatively tough climb, steep incline and most difficult was the sharp cold winds that attacked you from every side. The higher you climbed, the colder the wind. We walked with an American tourist most of the way up which helped to pass the time in the cold as he chatted about living as in expat in Hong Kong, occasionally farting as we ascended and immediately apologizing after (reminding Shri very much of walking with his Grandad when he was younger).
The winds at the top of the 7th watchtower were extremely strong and cold and none of the group who made it up that high stayed there too long. That being said there were some fabulous views of the winding wall from numerous points along the way, not just the 7th tower. Also, if you were to visit in spring or summer it would be much warmer – the advantage we had however, was the lack of tourists which allowed for some nice pictures untainted by hordes of tourists.
We decided to save the picture taking for the way down by which time our hands were frozen. In order to warm them up we walked down, flexing our fingers with each step – looking at us as a group, this could best be described as a ‘come at me bro’ pose, although the intention was just to warm the hands enough to take pictures.
Overall the experience of the wall was very moving, especially given its sad history and sheer scale. We also had the sense of accomplishment for braving the cold and getting to the top of the 7th tower in our small section of the great wall and back so left back for Beijing feeling satisfied.
Heavenly Temple, Forbidden City &Tiananmen Square
The next day we stayed in Beijing to explore some of the local history and attractions. Walking to the subway, we were again accompanied by the sound of people spitting – we put it down to the pollution. We navigated the subway seamlessly, having become experts the previous day and walked through security like pros (again, we were continuously poked by the staff with their devices after they had given us the all clear). Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven.
The Temple of Heaven was a place of worship during the Qing dynasty where emperors came to pray for the harvest and on occasions for rainfall. It had substantial grounds (although not as extensive as the Summer Palace) and makes for a fun half day out. Being relatively inexpensive (worth getting a through-pass as this gives you access to everything within the grounds) we definitely recommend a visit (we anticipate the grounds to be the most beautiful in spring). Between extensive rows of trees we caught glimpses of several people in different sections practising martial arts by themselves in silence. Before leaving, we made our way to the Heavenly Stone which supposedly makes the person who stands on it more sonorous – hence a lot of people would go to stand on it and then talk loudly or shout. Shri made his way forward to the stone at the same time as a small child. Shri, with his longer strides got there first much to the disappointment of the child. The child began to cry loudly and had to be pulled away by his parents while Shri climbed onto the stone. Everyone else in the vicinity was laughing about this, but once the laughter subsided the staring continued so Firuza ushered Shri away and out of the Temple of Heaven hastily after.
Next stop was the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the site of the Emperor’s residence during the Ming and Qing dynasties and was a forbidden area to all commoners (hence the name). Back then, a visit into the walls of the City would cost you your life – nowadays it’s a little less costly at around $5 per person. There is a lot of traditional architecture within the City, associated with the last two dynasties. We managed to view most places within the walls and definitely recommend it if you’re in Beijing.
We had the ‘time’ of our lives in the Hall of Clocks and Watches – a great section of the place dedicated to clocks and watches made during the two dynasties. It appears a taste was developed for European clocks and when trade became permitted in the port city of Guangzhou, these were popular imports for the emperors. We spent a good amount of time playing ‘spot the actual clock’, as most of them were highly elaborate designs with animals and all sorts carved into them and often only had about 5% of the structure allocated for the actual clock face. It’s as if the designer had been instructed to make something magnificent but that it was mandatory to have a clock somewhere on it too!
Leaving the Forbidden City, we made our way to Tiananmen Square, passing by many several people spitting on the streets and getting the after-check hits by security on the subway. We emerged at an exit from Qianmen and made our way towards the square, however, we were met by police who said we couldn’t get through. We tried again from across the road but there were also police blocking that entrance too. We learnt afterwards that Tiananmen Square, a highly political area with a darker history (well known for the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests) can often be cordoned off without reason and we were unlucky enough to try and see it at one of these times. If you do get a chance if you visit you’ll have to let us know how it is. We learned afterwards that General Mao (the founding father of the People’s Republic of China) is actually preserved there as well so we will endeavour to visit next time!
XI’AN
Train to Xi’an
The same night, we had booked for an overnight train from Beijing to Xi’an for the next leg of our journey. This was a sleeper train and not one of the high speed ones that have become popular to use across China. This meant that the train would be our accommodation for the night, lasting 11 hours before arrival. We had booked soft sleeper beds, as previous experience on a sleeper bus in Vietnam (hard sleeper) had proven quite an uncomfortable experience and that had been for over 12 hours.
We boarded the train and took in the surroundings of our home for the night. The train had a narrow corridor and the cabin itself had 4 shared beds with little to no room in the gap between them (2 bunk beds on either side). Our bunk mates arrived shortly afterwards so we went back into the hall to let them get settled in while the train began to move. We were sitting in the hall watching the sights go by when suddenly a sound distracted us from behind. It was the same retching-type sound we had heard on the Beijing streets and we both turned just in time to see this man spit in the hall of the train – no escaping it!
We managed to get through the night relatively comfortably and dosed off shortly after midnight. Our bunk mates simply watched films or shows on their phones, and thankfully they used headphones (unlike our night bus journey in Vietnam). One of them even took the initiative to use a hanger above his bed to hold his phone upright and watch his film without having to hold it up. The first encounter of a high speed train came on this journey when Shri awoke around 4 am with blinding white lights flashing by the window. It was over as quickly as it had started with the other train speeding past and Shri made a mental note that he wanted to try a journey on one of those before leaving China.
Xi’an City
The city of Xi’an was more built up than we would have expected considering its size relative to Beijing. However, it felt just as advanced and sophisticated as the capital. Our experiences of the various cities we visited across mainland China have allowed us to see that actually, China is probably the most developed country we have ever been to, even surpassing the US, UK and European countries.
First off, their payment systems are more advanced than the rest of the world. Everyone uses WeChat which is an all-encompassing App that allows you to chat with friends, make posts (similar to social media such as Instagram and Facebook), find local people to date, as well as the major function which is payments. Nobody is using credit/debit cards in China (in fact they are not even accepted in most places). Hardly any locals are even using cash. Instead, everywhere you go, WeChat is used to pay for everything you could possibly buy, making use of barcoding technology. Imagine a small stall selling cheap food in a street market; even they accept WeChat payments! We struggled to use WeChat as we did not have a Chinese bank account to link payments too and so were relegated to old school cash – a good reflection of the Europeans being less advanced than the Chinese. If you do visit China in the next few years hopefully there is an easier way for foreigners to make use of WeChat as this will really make the experience more seamless and you won’t have to worry about taking out cash at all – literally at all!
We often have this perception in the west that the reason that China has blocked sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Google all relate to censorship and to prevent unwanted information/news being made available to the local population. There is probably some truth in this; however, we now believe that it may be more related to the idea of WeChat/Chinese controlled apps having the monopoly in the country. Without competition from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, WeChat has been able to expand significantly and dominate everything you can think of. If you do ever download it just avoid shaking your phone as this is how you request a date nearby :-).
Enough of the payment/technology waffle then and back to Xi’an. We did all of our shopping here in the local market, which is right next to the Muslim Quarter. Islam is not common in China but Xi’an does have a residual Muslim Population and a Great Mosque which we visited. We also visited a Bell Tower and Drum Tower which were prevalent during both the Ming and Qing dynasties and the City Wall. While out and about we were approached by a couple of local girls who wanted to take a selfie with us. You might ask what the catch here is, but actually there isn’t. It seems there are a lot of Chinese people who have not really had much exposure to Europeans and so we were of interest to them, exotic almost. The girls did also ask if they could add us on WeChat but unfortunately we had to tell them we didn’t have it. This was not to be the last time we had our picture taken by locals on the trip – but we soon learned it was quite common for them to take the pictures but not always to ask…
Terracotta Army
The primary purpose of the visit to Xi’an was to see the Terracotta Army, a vast excavation of sculptures portraying an army of warriors which were made by the first Emperor of China to protect the nation. This exhibit was highly recommended to us before our trip and we can safely say that it was well worth it and agree with those who have said this should and could well become one of the wonders of the world.
The site was initially discovered by local farmers (the farmer who discovered the first statue that led to the discovery of the rest of the army was at the time given 10 Yuan) in 1974 and consists of 3 different pits. It is estimated that there are approximately 8000 soldiers making up the army of sculptures consisting of various ranks. The roof of the building originally fell on the sculptures resulting in almost all of them being fragmented and hence the project is under way to piece them back together again. From what we were told it will take almost 70 years before they are all pieced together again so if you can hang on another 70 years you’ll be in for a real treat when you visit!
Chengdu
Chengdu High-Speed Trains & Taxi Problems
We travelled from Xi’an to Chengdu via high-speed rail. What would have once been about an 18 hour journey is now possible in 4 hours thanks to the superfast trains that now run throughout the country at very reasonable rates too. The train itself felt like first class throughout with ample leg room available which Shri appreciated while Firuza couldn’t tell the difference to normal…
Once we arrived at the rail station we attempted to get a taxi from the pickup point. We stopped the first one we saw and showed the address of our hostel, asking if we could be taken there. He looked at our phone for what felt like a full 60 seconds before saying no and deriving off. The same thing happened with the next 3 drivers. We even got the location open on the Mapsme app but with no success as the next few drivers shook their heads and drove to the next passengers. What you have to keep in mind while travelling in China, is that a large number of the population are unable to speak little to no English – let read an address written in English. This will probably change in about 10 years’ time, with English a mandatory language being taught in schools and also with the fact that it is mandatory to have native English speakers at each school.
However, we had a predicament as nobody was taking us so Shri went back down to find a police officer (they are everywhere) or staff member who could help write the address in Chinese. Nobody spoke English though. In the end, he bumped into several men who asked if he needed a taxi – he did! They managed to take a photo of the address on his phone and translate that into the address in Chinese. Finally we had found a way! Just make sure whenever you are travelling between locations in China and using taxis, that you always request the address of your location in Chinese – a quick email to the hotel/hostel normally works and will save you the hassle especially when you’re tired from getting off a plane or train.
Chengdu City
Again, this city was very built up, full of big brand stores, advanced transport systems (another subway system just as good as Beijing’s) and large buildings at every corner. As with Beijing and Xi’an, there were of course plenty of people spitting all over the place and we saw our first woman spitter here too. Being curious we decided to google (only possible using our VPN app) why there is so much spitting and turns out it’s mainly due to pollution which was also taking a bit of a toll on Shri who was feeling a bit under the weather at this point. We read a couple of other posts about this and a lot of people’s responses to this question other than pollution were “better out than in” – fair enough!
We spent the next day wondering around Chengdu. We visited the local markets and Shri took the opportunity to really get into trying local street food cuisine. This consisted of the following: whole Mackerel on a stick (including head), Gizzard on a stick and crispy insects in a tub which he enjoyed the most! He had already tried Chicken Feet in Xi’an but those hadn’t gone down too well with him so he was quite pleased with himself for being able to get through the gizzard and insects (Still not sure exactly what they were).
Giant Panda Research Base
One of the key reasons for coming to Chengdu was to visit the Giant Panda Research base located a short distance from the city centre. We got there bright and early before it opened as we had heard that the pandas go to sleep for most of the day after they eat in the morning and wanted to make sure we caught a proper glimpse. The queues were packed when we arrived just before opening time at 07:30am but we got into the grounds without issue and then started making our way to the pandas. To be honest, we had no clue where we were going, it was still quite dark and there weren’t many signs around, so we ended up following the largest group of Chinese tourists who were bound to go to the right place. They didn’t. We eventually got to the baby pandas after going in circles for some time.
The baby pandas were really cute and after seeing them we made our way to the next section, finding the adult pandas, although they were all isolated in their own areas. We moved on, to multiple other areas of different aged pandas, some still kids, some older. If this is starting to sound like a zoo that has pandas as the only animal then that’s exactly what it was like! But the difference is, for some reason pandas make people happy. We ‘can’t put our finger on it but there is something about them that can’t help but bring a smile to your face and so this was a happy zoo!
The site has actually managed to revive a lot of the panda population, starting with just 6 pandas they now house 146, and they have been carefully releasing pandas back into their natural habitat too. We visited the research centre after spending half a day being happy and watching the pandas. Here we watched a brief film/documentary about the pandas narrated by David Attenborough that we probably could have watched back home – but it wouldn’t feel as powerful if we hadn’t been there to watch it! After this we found an interesting panda dating game that they had setup in the research centre. The aim of the game was to match different pandas together and see if they could successfully reproduce (they don’t graphically show this). Turns out, the game is rigged, as we tried every combination of panda and all of them ended up having 1 or more kids – despite our best efforts to choose the least attractive and what we thought to be the least compatible combinations. When you travel to a research centre and try very hard to stop fake CGI pandas from reproducing you know it’s time to go home and rest for the day – so we did this shortly after.
Shanghai
Welcome to Shanghai, the most populated city in China and the 3rd most populated in the world! Well this really is the city of skyscrapers and a ‘built-up’ city by definition. We arrived by flight direct from Chengdu and decided to hit the city and see the sights.
The majority of this part of the trip consisted of ascending to the top of some of the largest skyscrapers the city has to boast (with elevator assistance). Before that though, we managed to do a bit more shopping (including some good price negotiations where some souvenirs were halved in price in the space of 30 seconds – never go with their first price because they will likely make a good profit at a third of their original asking price), visit the tranquil Yu Garden in the centre of the city, hop on and off a hop on hop off bus and take to The Bund.
The Bund is a scenic stretch on the riverbanks that boast some of the most spectacular views of the Shanghai skyline and where you can get some excellent shots (still lots of people spitting though). We strolled along taking pictures, noting the frequent stares by Chinese tourists who would occasionally take a sly photo of us when they thought we weren’t looking. Shri then decided to try and get a spectacular shot of his own, jumping up some stairs with the Shanghai skyline in the backdrop. Although the end product was not as spectacular as he had hoped, he had garnered even more attention form Chinese tourists who were now staring even more and likely taking some more photos of him at this point so the fame was growing.
We went up the Oriental Pearl Tower on the first evening, which used to be the tallest building in Shanghai (and China) and still acts as a symbol of the city recognized by many. There is a glass floor at the top of this building so if you get your pose right, you can make it look like your falling from the building – surely worth it for that alone?
Next we went up the Shanghai World Financial Centre – on oddly shaped tower that in our opinion resembles a bottle opener. This too had a glass floor at the top and for some reason made Firuza a bit queasy – could it be vertigo or was it the association with the finance sector that had sickened her? After this we made our way to see the Jade Buddha in the western part of the city before returning at dusk to see the highest building in the city.
Standing at 632 meters, the Shanghai tower is at the time of writing the second highest building in the world after the Burj Khalifa. We spent almost half an hour reading about the other tallest buildings in the world in the lobby area before going up. The nice thing was that it even provided information on which buildings were being built currently so we could see what was to come. It seems that Jeddah tower in Saudi Arabia is to overtake the Burj Khalifa in a few years and will stand at over 1000 meters – yikes!!
It is worth noting that pretty much everything we did in Shanghai was covered using the Shanghai pass which means that you don’t need to carry cash around (you can pay for it online using card). This is particularly useful if you aren’t able to use WeChat. All in all we had a great time scaling the heights of Shanghai and looking down on a magnificently lit city. To cap it off, when we got back to the hostel on the final night, we had new roommates – one of whom came from a small town in the North East of China. Having not really seen westerners before, he asked for a photo with us (it’s worth noting that males normally ask males to take photos with them and females ask females) and so we got to feel like celebrities again before leaving for Macau the next day.
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