Shanghai: Day 1

The train ride went very well; both of us got lots of sleep with no problems. We woke up around 10, with over an hour left on our trip. Our train arrived in Shanghai roughly 45 minutes late. This time we were prepared and weren’t the last ones off the train either. :-P Shanghai’s railway station was as busy as any of them. We made our way out to the main entrance and started looking around for the subway entrance. After wandering around for a short while, we found a large map with all the subway information on it. A minute of trying to decide the best POA (thanks Mr. Peterson) to get to our subway stop. A Chinese guy was kind enough to try and help us (Bethany disputes this, as she still thinks the map was a bunch of bunk; I disagree) and we entered the entrance for a different subway line and were able to make our way through the transfer to our line. Turns out that they have built another line that goes parallel with the one we needed anyway; which was helpful throughout our time in Shanghai as there were then trains coming roughly every five minutes. We took the subway to our stop, which was only a few away. Shanghai’s subway system doesn’t charge a flat fee like Beijing, but instead it’s based off of where you are going; this meant that our trip to our stop was only 1 Yuan for the both of us (a whole $.15) From our stop, we only had a five minute walk to our hostel. The hostel we were staying at was an exceptionally nice hostel that was almost a mix between hostel and hotel. It was several times larger than our hostel in Turkey. The room was also very nice and large. The lobby and bar atmosphere it had (yes, it had a little pub in it) was very cool. We dumped off our stuff and spent the next several hours just relaxing and recouperating in the room. We watched a movie (well, I did, Bethany was asleep again within twenty minutes) and then went out for the evening. We made our way down to the Bund; the old colonial holdings from the mid-late 19th century. Our stop put us out in a very commercialized heavy shopping district. As we were walking we had tons of people trying to sell us watches; something that really only happened in Shanghai. The walk took about 15 minutes or so before we made it down to the riverfront. It became increasingly obvious we were getting closer because the architecture continued to change and gained a much stronger western style to it. Furthermore, the view from the river was just beautiful at night. The sci-fi looking TV tower was lit up like a Disco, the huge Shanghai building that was the tallest in the world for a couple of years (it looks like a giant bottle opener) had blue lights outlining it, and the Bund behind us was soft yellow lights making the old buildings look fantastic. We spent about an hour walking along the riverfront and also checking out times for the boat trip on the river. We then made our way back to our hotel and watched another movie to round out the evening.