During the early hours of this morning we entered the mighty Yangtze River for a time and then entered into a tributary - the Huangpu River and arrived at the Shanghai Cruise Terminal around 5.30am. We awoke to a delightful view of a beautiful park and city buildings behind, the weather was perfect.
Shanghai is the most heavily populated city in China, and today I think everyone of those inhabitants were down around The Bund and at the other tourist attractions, as it was "a public holiday"– OMG!!!!! Have never, ever seen so many people in all our lives.
We took an age to finally get off the ship and into our ship's tour bus, as every single person on board (around 3,000) had to be processed by the Chinese Customs – even if you weren't going ashore. Finally we were on our way and into downtown Shanghai for our 'city drive' – our first impressions were that it is a very modern city with many new office blocks, good wide roads and clean. Our first stop was at the Jin Mao Tower, one of the tallest in China -a massive 88 floors and a great viewing area from this top floor – it was a bit hazy and all the buildings seem to blend into each other, but the river did look impressive weaving it's way through the city. We then spent over half an hour just driving around the city which was not that exciting and unfortunately our guide was equally unexciting. The traffic around the beautiful (and very different) Pearl Tower was far too congested for a photo stop and we ended up at The Bund which was absolutely choccas with Chinese – all taking photos of each other!! This wonderful walking strip is around a mile in lenght along the Huangpu River, filled with beautiful flower beds, restaurants/cafes and shops – and from this vantage point, we were able to take great photos of the Pearl Tower, office towers; buildings and lots of traffic on the river.
We left the ship's tour at this point, opting to make our own way back to the ship, and as we were a little peckish were lucky to quickly find a "Subway" (we didn't really have time to explore other possibilities, in other words, not game enough!) which we ordered by pointing a lot and then hoed into a footlong between us, which was really good. We also shouted another random couple off the ship who wanted a Subway but didn't have any Chinese money – just when we were thinking they were cheaper than at home!! Colin persuaded me to walk up one of the main shopping streets – he was on a mission!! Battling the crowds was pretty horrendous be we found a market place and Colin made a specific purchase - another watch – this time a "Tag" and 5 hours later, it is still working. We nearly got run over at the pedestrian crossing by multiple motor scooters, some of whom don't even stop at the red lights. I had had enough and didn't even think of market shopping and was happy to head back, but did think we deserved a Magnum, which was devoured very quickly.
Another amazing sailaway at dusk and the ship did a very graceful 180deg. manouvre to get us on course - a million lights were beginning to shine bright and it was a wonderful sight.
Dinner was fascinating as we all went in different directions during the day, so there was lots to talk and laugh about and, of course, dinner was great – beautiful Atlantic Salmon. The orchestra treated us to a 'jam session' in the Atrium, which we really enjoyed and then it was early to bed after a very big day – well it wasn't as early as we thought, as we had to put our clocks forward an hour!!
PHOTOS: Jin Mao Tower; View from 88th floor of Jin Mao Tower; Pearl Tower & city skyline; Close-up of base of Pearl Tower; Crowded pedestrian crossing; People, bikes, scooters, going in all directions; pretty view of gardens from cabin; This building is knicknamed "the bottle opener"; Sailaway; Lots & lots of lights as we leave Shanghai.
No comments:
Post a Comment