China - Last Days

20 October, Pacific Hotel, People's Square, Shanghai

Shanghai's Bund is the city's old waterfront. Lined with late 19^th century and early 20^th century buildings, it is another of the iconic Chinese sights.

We wandered out of our hotel this morning and took a nice coffee and breakfast entertained by locals practising their ballroom dancing moves on the street at the top of the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall. As we sauntered along with the usual throng heading down to the Bund, we could have been in Paris, Vienna or Prague. All the big brands were there, plus many more Asian up-market stores we haven't seen before. But just wait for them!

 

 

Down at the Bund, the river was empty and the view across to the commercial heart of the city was fantastic. We did the Sunday morning Bund stroll with the well-heeled locals and larger numbers of foreigners than we experienced in Beijing.

Just as we were about to head off, a convoy of barges turned into our reach of the river. Obviously they have specific times to travel on the river. What were they hauling? Yep coal, all the way from Australia. We waited for 30 minutes or so for a good photo and they kept coming, more than fifty by the time we left.

 Our other targets for the day were a couple of older areas of the city. Tianzifang is an area of narrow lanes and streets that represent what large parts of the city were like well into the 1970's. Again, the need to maintain the area is supported by commerce. German bars, British pubs and European food outlets mix with Chinese shops selling mostly to the local and foreign tourist market. All the same, the area still has an authentic feel and it was miles more interesting than the other area we visited in the French Concession area, Xintiandi, which was purely European, a place for expats and locals seeking a Western experience.

We actually found more local colour wandering about looking for an antique market. The back streets of some parts of Shanghai still provide some authentic old city vistas, but you have to wear out some shoe leather to find them.

 

As the afternoon wore on, more and more locals hit the streets. The atmosphere was much like big cities everywhere. Where were we? Sometimes it was hard to tell this afternoon. As the number of people on the streets grow, the power balance between the cars, buses and bikes and pedestrians swings in our favour. As numbers build up at crossings, the crowds edge forward, progressively blocking off the vehicular traffic. Once the 'people flood' starts, that's it, traffic just stops and the roads are ours! When we don't have the numbers, the lights and pedestrian crossings don't mean much. You have to bluff or just wait. We have been to South-east Asia. We can bluff with the best of them!

Oh, by the way, the TV just reminded us that Shanghai has a Hooters Bar!

 

21 October, Pacific Hotel, Shanghai.

Last full day in Shanghai and China. What can we say, but WOW!

 Took another walk down Nanjing Road to the Bund this morning after another coffee and pastry while entertained by the Chinese version of Dancing With the Stars, well the old stars. These oldies meet every day on this corner and trip the light fantastic. Some of them are very good. Others are just in for the company.

The Chinese are nowhere near as easy to engage as the Vietnamese, Cambodians or Laotians, all of whom are up for a chat anytime. But from time to time you get to connect and share a laugh or a photo opportunity. These are confident people who don't feel the need to interact with the few Westerners who roam their streets. And why should they? When we reflect on what happens at home, it is a bit rich to expect a warm welcome from everybody you meet. On Australian streets, travellers from foreign lands are generally simply ignored.

Smog closed in as the morning drew on and by the time we took the ferry from the Bund (AUD$0.30) across the Huangpu River to Pudong, visibility was poor but not as bad as some days in Beijing. On a clear day, this would be one of the great value river crossings in the world. On one bank the 19^th century buildings of the Bund; on the Pudong side, one of the most spectacular skylines in the world. The riverside walk on the Pudong side of the Huangpu was almost deserted as this is the commercial heart of the city and except for lunch time, things are fairly quiet on the street. It was low tide as we enjoyed the rare solitude. Interestingly, the exposed muddy river flats were near spotless, as is most of the city.

The Oriental Pearl Tower  is an iconic Shanghai landmark. A trip up the tower would have been a bit of a waste on a hazy day like today, so we opted for the Shanghai History Museum in the basement of the tower. As with everything here in China, it was extremely well done and, for us, informative and interesting.

 

 

This narrative has skipped over many of the places we have visited in both Beijing and Shanghai, but be assured we haven't missed much, as we walk as much as reasonably possible. We have seen a lot of places most travellers or tourists miss, although this might be as a result of getting lost, often, despite the use of our faithful Samsung and its GPS linked maps. The following comments are based on experiences most visitors to China don't have.

 

China in Review

Guess the first thing that comes to mind is an unlikely meeting with a couple of European travellers we met a few years back in Sapa in the north of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. These guys had just crossed over from China and they were staggered with the difference between China and Vietnam. To them China was just so developed in comparison. It stuck in our minds, because we had an image of China as much the same as Vietnam. Wrong!

Sure, Beijing and Shanghai are not representative of all China, but from what we have seen, including a 1500 km train trip between the two cities, this place is just amazing. We are no wide-eyed novices. We have been around a bit. Most of Beijing and virtually all of Shanghai is as developed as any Western city we have visited. Beijing is more traditional Chinese in its ways. Shanghai is very Western, more cosmopolitan, sophisticated and progressive.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have moved into the middle class and tens of millions into the upper middle class, Hundreds of millions more will achieve dramatically increased standards of living in the very near future. What this all means for China and the rest of the world, who can tell?

 

22 October Pudong International Airport, Shanghai

 Postscript

 Standing on the queue this morning outside the Shanghai Museum, we recalled some of the things that probably are not to love about China. Queues are a bit of an issue in themselves, but even more of an annoyance is the behaviour of some Chinese people in queues. Queue-jumping is endemic in China, at least the parts we visited and, generally, tolerated by the locals. In Shanghai the odd voice is sometimes raised in protest - not that it makes much difference. An allied niggle is the constant pushing. Waiting to cross at the lights, getting in and out of doors, mounting escalators, it seems that every Chinese just has to be at the front of the line, first in or first off as the case may be. Universal subway etiquette is that exiting passengers go first while those entering stand aside. Not in China. Getting off a subway train is a bit like a rolling maul in Rugby, bind tight, head down and barge forward. All this might reasonably be attributed to the crowded nature of the mega Chinese cities, but it quickly becomes tiresome.

Spitting in the streets and even on the floors of restaurants is something we Westerners just can't come to grips with. To be fair, the habit is far from universal and some have learned to walk to the nearest rubbish bin to let loose. But, the pre-spit hawking, getting it all up from the toes, is still stomach-retching. Chinese mobile phones must have very poor microphones if the way people yell into them is any indication. Yelling at each other in public places is also widely practised. Finally, the tendency for every slightly secluded corner to double as a urinal warrants special mention. At times the smells in some subway entrances or underpasses can bring tears to the eyes. We have extended our lung capacity greatly by holding our breath and bolting through the offending area at top pace.

 As for the squat toilets, AND for those western toilets used as squats … enough said.

All that being said, for those considering a trip to China, just do it. The minor annoyances fade  to insignificance in the light of the truly unique experiences that await the visitor to China. For the experienced independent traveller, it is a breeze. Even for the novice it is easily achievable. Expect good value for money but China isn't a cheap destination by Asian standards.

 We will be back next year to see some more of China and take the China-Mongolia railway up into Siberia to connect with the Trans-Siberian Railway through to Moscow and St Petersburg.

The greatest adventures are always

ahead.

 

 

 

Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai

10 October 2013, The Dorsett Mongkok.

Took a long train trip out to Tin Shui Wai this morning to do what is advertised as a 'heritage walk'. To be fair, in a city as modern as Hong Kong, it was ok as a heritage experience, particularly so as the whole thing was the work of two local families who wanted to preserve some of their past. The distance from the city has probably kept most tourists away and is perhaps a good thing in some ways. Sadly, the lack of visitors has meant that some areas of the walk have been let go a bit. As an historical experience it was a bit of a fizzer, but just to get out to this small remnant of rural village life in old HK was worth the effort for us.

Hong Kong is, of course, very compact, which probably amplifies the impact of the infrastructure and buildings. In some places it is just overwhelming. Freeway ramps cross over multiple metro lines, trams and buses flood the streets and the housing and business towers fill the sky. Tokyo staggered us on our first visit and for vastness it still makes New York look like a country town. HK's impact is different. The harbour is a great setting, much like Sydney and San Francisco and the surrounding hills somehow soften the harshness of the hundreds of tower blocks.

 

Later in the day we took the Star Ferry from Hong Kong island back to Kowloon for one of the best harbour views in the world. The omnipresent haze was fairly light and so we had some great views of both sides of the harbour.

Even later on, we had a great dinner at an unnamed cafe just up the road from our hotel. Obviously not a tourist hit, the locals led us here. It was full-on packed and the food was fantastic and they had beer! The damage was about $20 for three courses and two very large bottles of beer. Who said Hong Kong was expensive?          

11 October, Bridal Tea House Hotel, Mongkok

Due to a minor error in booking our hotels, we had to move from the Dorsett to another hotel just around the corner. Ouch! This is is probably the worst hotel we have stayed in in our many months of travelling Asia. One night won't kill us, but what a shocker! Old, half complete, across the road from a major construction project (not their fault we guess) but at more that AUD $100 a night, easily the worst value we have ever had in Asia.

Not phased by our digs, (you only sleep there) we set off to the outer island of Cheung Chau on the fast ferry. A 20 minute ride for the grand sum of $92.40HK for both of us ($13AUD), we were among a small handful of western tourists destined for a day on an island. When the ferry landed it was pandemonium; for some reason everybody has to be off first. We headed around the small harbour away from the crowds for a look at the more original parts of this fishing village. Hundreds of fishing boats of all sizes bobbed about in the harbour and if we imagined the smog wasn't there it could have been a Greek island (well, almost).

 

The markets were full of stalls with fresh (read alive) seafood, just in from the boats. We were easily seduced by an old dear at a sea front restaurant, and settled in for a four course seafood lunch. All good except that eating extremely small crabs is more than a simple skill!

Wading in the warm waters of the almost deserted beach on the other side of the island, it was hard to imagine that Hong Kong was just 20 minutes away.

This is our last night in Hong Kong. It has been fun and not at all as expensive as we had expected. For example, this morning we dined on danish, muffins and buns from a bakery just over the road from our hotel. Total cost AUD$2.60. Our seaside seafood lunch was AUD$30, including a big beer. And, while on money issues, the 2 way MTR Tourist Pass is an absolute bargain. We had our return airport express fares and 3 days travel on the MTR for AUD $35 each, then we got AUD $7 back on returning the card. The return Airport Express fare is AUD $10, so we got 3 days MRT subway and bus for AUD $18. Insane! And did we use it!

Off to Beijing tomorrow..

 

12 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

After the usual confusion getting tickets sorted on arrival, we finally hit the subway and found our exit station. More confusion on exit, as there always seems to be; stations are so disorientating! Weaving our way through the crowds on the street, we realised we were going the wrong way when the Main Gate to the Forbidden City emerged from the chaos. The Chairman was our clue. We were definitely in Beijing.

Now settled in our hotel, which is a major step up from last night's disaster, fortified by a couple of Tsingtao beers, we are doing our washing and preparing to conquer the Middle Kingdom!

 

13 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

Sadly, the first thing that hits you about Beijing is the smog. The pollution is unbelievably bad. Our eyes were stinging after the first few hours and visibility was no more than a couple of hundred metres. The second thing is the people - zillions of them lining up for the main attractions in our area, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tens of thousands of black heads were swarming along the broad footpaths every where we went. In the subway, things are reasonably civilized, but crowded nevertheless. And it is Sunday!

We skipped the square and the Forbidden City today and jumped the subway for what we thought would be a serenely peaceful few hours wandering about a couple of temples and the ancient Beijing Drum and Bell towers. The temples were temples... sorry but Asian Buddhist temples all start to look alike after a while, a bit like European Cathedrals. The Drum Tower was quite fascinating, with several crafty ancient machines used to measure time so that the drums could sound out the hours to the good folk of old Beijing. We were treated to a great display of drumming on replica ancient drums. Apparently, some nasty western colonialists took great pleasure in puncturing all the original ones with their knives and swords in the very early 20^th century. Such a civilized bunch.

A wander through the hutongs, the original urban villages of Beijing, took us the rest of the day, ending with a stroll down some beautifully wide boulevards that would do Paris or Vienna proud, except for the dense smog!

 

Most of the hutongs have been destroyed and replaced with high-rise apartment blocks,. But some areas are now being preserved and others are being 'reconstructed' in the old style. It also seems that the hutongs don't have sewerage connections to all dwellings as there are public toilets every 100 m or so. From the smell, a visit to one is not a recommended part of the hutong experience.

The poor in Beijing seem to face a wealth gap that is much greater than faced by their counterparts in the west. Affluent middle class Chinese are able to pay big city prices that are not too much out of line with the west, while the millions of urban poor seem to live in a parallel economy where vastly inferior food , clothing and general items are all they can afford. It also seems that the socialist ideal of a reasonable life for all is failing many as homeless people live on the fringes here, much as they do in large western cities.

We have mastered some Mandarin and are able to say thank you, 'Seeya, seeya', not too hard for Australians to master. Now we are on a quest to teach some manners to 1.3 billion Chinese. We might have to come back.

 

14 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

Chatting with our 8 year old grand-daughter about our pending trip to China, we asked her what we might find in China. Expecting things like the Great Wall or Pandas, we got instead, “Chinese”. We probably shouldn't have expected anything less than the obvious from a fairly precocious 8 year old. But she was right on the mark.

Today we tackled the Forbidden City, the dynastic home of the Emperors of China. Not much of a trip for us, because our hotel is right beside the Forbidden City and just up the road from Tiananmen Square. The crowds were nothing like the day we arrived, but still a challenge for us. The City is just enormous. We had to shuffle along at a fair clip to get through it all because it closed at 12:00 today.

For some crowd relief, we grabbed some rolls and a sort of Chinese pizza from a street stall and walked through the new park that borders the walls of the Forbidden City. Peace at last.

Up until today the smog has been terrible, but with a drop in temperature and a bit of a wind, the sky gradually cleared. What a difference! By the time we had trained it out to the Olympic village just after lunch, there was blue sky and sunshine.

It takes a bit to get a real WOW out of us these days, but much of what we have seen in Beijing is WOW territory. Just the scale of everything is jaw-dropping. The newer parts of the city (and that is most of it!) are open and spacious. High rise buildings are set back from the streets, with gardens, wide footpaths and main streets that are a normal city block wide. Of special mention are the subway advertisements that flash past in the tunnels between stations. Imagine the old flip card moving pictures you could create by flipping the corners of a pad to create the illusion of movement. Now envisage a line of illuminated screens in a darkened subway tunnel as your train speeds past creating a moving video image using the flicker factor of the carriage windows. Just.. WOW.

 

Almost 40 years ago we visited Europe for the first time. We were of course enraptured with the history, architecture and culture. But we also remember feeling that Europe then was very much the 'old world', just a little less dynamic and modern than home (Australia) was. Since that first visit we have been around a bit and seen a lot of the world and in more recent times travelled extensively in Asia. So where exactly do we think is the New World of the 21^st Century? Our bet is definitely not in the West.

America beware the rise of the Dragon!

 

15 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

Up early today to catch the local local bus out to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. We had been told that the bus station was difficult to find and the journey was too complicated for non-Chinese speakers to attempt. So of course we decided to go. Aside from the challenge, the fare was an attractive $1.20 each way for the two and a half hour trip as opposed to $100 or more for a tour bus. Having checked out the bus station yesterday afternoon, (it took us an hour to find it!) we caught the subway to connect to the bus stop in plenty of time for the 08:30  'Special Tourist Bus 867'. Confusion reigned supreme at the bus station with hundreds of country folk rolling in with bales of 'stuff' to sell on the street and a few bewildered tourists, both Chinese and European, studying maps and tablet devices. Very soon, however, we were all pulled into line by a four foot nothing Chinese conductress who sat us all down in a neat waiting queue. Any attempt to move position or stand up was greeted with a torrent of Chinese which could only be interpreted as threatening.

We fell in with three young guys, an American, a Bulgarian and a German who had attempted this journey yesterday, only to spend the whole day roaming the outer suburbs of Beijing on a series of bus-lines that led them everywhere except the Great Wall. Understandably, they were a little 'gun shy' of the whole Beijing transport system and managed to transmit some of this to us as the arrival time of the bus slipped past. About 40 minutes after the appointed time we were finally herded onto the No 867 Special Tourist Bus by what was probably the last of Mao's soldiers of the Cultural Revolution.

Our long journey through the suburbs of this enormous city was well worth the price. Mile after mile of well-laid out, wide streets and motorways lined with modern factory and housing blocks slipped slowly by as we negotiated extremely heavy traffic for the 50 kms to the Great Wall.

The smog that had greeted us on our first day in Beijing was totally gone today. The sky was crystal clear and visibility was almost limitless. Just 50 kms from the city, the  Mutianyu sector of the wall is in a beautiful, rugged area of natural forest that seems to stretch on forever. The Wall was, of course, constructed to keep out the Mongols, but given the nature of the terrain, they would have done well to even get to the Wall.

The very hearty, or very silly, can climb up to the Wall from the carpark/bus station, but almost everybody jumps on the cable car to the top of the ridge to walk along the Wall. Walking the Wall is strenuous enough. It is extremely steep in most parts. The downward journey can also be made by chairlift or the more adventurous tourists (like us) take the 'Chute' which is a luge ride of a couple of kms down the steep side of the mountain. What a hoot!

The good old 14:00 867 Special Tourist Bus was early for the return journey, but the more crafty of us were in line well before the scheduled arrival time and so, once again, foiled the dastardly Communist plot to befuddle and confuse innocent Westerners.

 

16 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

Mao's mausoleum in Tiananmen Square is just across the road from our hotel, so we had a bit of a leisurely start to the day and headed off to see the Great Leader. It was about 9:15 by the time we joined the end of the queue, 10-15 people wide, that seemed to stretch for at least a kilometre,  winding left and right across the enormous square that was the scene of the tragic quashing of public dissent by the Red Army in 1989. Perhaps the most lasting image of those tragic days, at least in Western minds, is that of the 'Tank Man' who alone confronted a line of tanks in the square. There are no monuments here to these events of course, and the identity and fate of the 'Tank Man' is not clear to this day. Many believe he was just heading home with his shopping (he had a grocery bag) and was moved to make his statement. Whatever his story, it is not celebrated here and he has vanished into the swirling sea of humanity that is China.

As our queue shuffled on, we were initially amused by the need of most Chinese to queue-jump wherever possible. Four foot high little old ladies ferreted their way around us, teenagers slipped through any gap available and pint-sized men shoved and elbowed their way on. After the first hour of this shuffling tide, our tolerance began to fray and we commenced our own rolling blockade. What was their point? The Chairman wasn't leaving town! Fruitless as our efforts were against the 200,000 Chinese in the queue, we gave it a good try and it kept us amused. Some Western support might have helped, but there were only a score or so non-locals in this enormous crush. As the second hour approached, we finally had the last security check before entering the sacred tomb. At last the crowd settled and some degree of solemnity descended on the masses as we approached the revered Chairman.

Yep he was still there.

Once out of the mausoleum, we were able to get some perspective on the size of the crowd in the whole square. A conservative guess would be around one quarter of a million people and just over the road at the Forbidden City another 100,000 or so were making their pilgrimage to the seat of the old Emperors. Lucky we picked a weekday for our visit, apparently it gets crowded on the weekends.

For some reason, every one of the dozens of large flag poles lining the street around the square and Forbidden City today had both a Chinese and Australian flag. Surely not just for us?

Our afternoon activity was far less of a test of patience. The Imperial Summer Palace was once located well out of the city. Today it is an enormous oasis on the fringes of the inner city. Most of the Palace and the surrounds have been reconstructed, much of it in the late 1940s. Seems that the Europeans who were granted special trading areas in China during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries took great pleasure in destroying important Chinese cultural monuments in retribution for any attempts by the Chinese to take back control of their own Empire. The reaction to the Boxer Rebellion in 1901 was especially devastating as much of the vast assemblage of palaces, temples and other buildings here were torched by the English and French. Seems they can work together on some things.

Touts pushing tours of attractions are a mild annoyance in most countries, but we have finally developed a fail safe method to cut them off short. Given the fact that 99% of the tours offered here are in English, we have taken to feigning a lack of knowledge of our mother tongue by responding to touts in French, German, Italian, Spanish or any other language of which we have even the faintest knowledge. It stops them in their tracks! “Pardon, pas d'Anglais, parlez-vous Francais'?”gets them every time! With some practice we might even try Khmer.

Just before leaving on this trip, we read an article that suggested that the Chinese government needed to be more active in promoting and facilitating foreign tourism. Our observation would be, why? From what we have seen, domestic tourists are pushing the system to capacity. Western tourists are less than 1% of those who jostle with us at every attraction. Who needs more foreign tourists when there seem to be more than enough locals with the cash to be big spending tourists in their own country?

 

17 October, Tian An Rega Hotel, Beijing

For our last day in Beijing, we decided to take it easy and visit the Chinese National Museum which is just beside Tiananmen Square. The smog today had built back up to eye-watering intensity, but that didn't stop the crowds. The queue to visit Mao was even longer than yesterday, but the Museum line was only a 10 minute wait and we got free entry as foreigners.

Security in most parts of Beijing has, on the surface, been tight, but really, anybody wishing to do serious harm would have no problem. Bags are checked at all subway stations, (can you imagine that in NYC or London?) but the person on the other side of the screen is often asleep.

At the museum, though, they were a little more attentive. Everybody entering must go through a personal check with a metal detector wand and a 'light' pat down.

The museum is enormous and well laid out, but to be frank, unless you are really into Chinese art and history, it is a bit too much, even when it is free for holders of foreign passports.

For a bit of retail therapy, we visited the Pearl Markets in the afternoon. Not just pearls here, everything you might imagine. Great fun to wander about and take in the atmosphere. Store holders are mostly good humoured and enjoy a good haggle as much as we do. As a basic rule, start at 10% of the original asking price and don't move too far above that. For example, for a little dress for Abby, our granddaughter, we were offered 250 yuan ($50) first up. We got it for 35 yuan ($7) and the guy wasn't crying, so we probably could have got it for even less. Great fun!

Off to Shanghai on the Chinese Bullet Train tomorrow.

 

18 October, People's Train G13, Beijing Nan to Shanghai-Hongqaio

Current speed 301km per hour.

The journey from Beijing to Shanghai is roughly the same distance as Brisbane to Cairns. It will take 4 hours and 50 minutes (give or take). We had no trouble getting tickets (AUD$110), as we booked a few days ahead, but our train is full and so were all those that left Beijing every five to ten minutes between 9:00 am and 11:00 am. After 11:00 the frequency drops back to once every 30 minutes. These are 16 carriage, high-speed bullet trains and they run both ways on this line on this schedule 7 days a week.

Smog was so thick in Beijing as we departed that it had rolled down into the tunnels of the subway. We have been lucky with only the first and last days of our stay in Beijing being marred by heavy smog.

More than 3 hours into our journey and visibility has improved, with city smog now replaced by much lighter haze from millions of small fires set by farmers burning off the remnants of the stubble from the corn harvest. Larger urban areas have, on the most part, been replaced by thousands of rural towns and villages both new and old. Every now and then a forest of highrise apartments looms up over the plain that is chequered with small plots of corn, wheat, rice, vegetables, cotton and millions of fruit trees.

Many of the older rural villages are rather attractive, set amongst windbreaks of birch and poplar trees. Frequently, we pass large industrial towns that scar the landscape. Guess these are where all the stuff we in the West consume so ravenously comes from. We have also passed a few enormous 'Ghost Cities', hundreds of complete and partly complete high rises complete with roads and other infrastructure. Thousands of cranes tower like their bird namesakes everywhere you look. But nobody lives there. Yet.

Super 4-6 lane highways, yet unopened, cross the railway line every 50 kms or so. Even those that are open, and there are plenty of them, have very light traffic away from the city centres. Much of the infrastructure has been built for the future. Already, more cars are sold each year in China than in the USA.

The countryside we are passing through is obviously heavily populated and intensively farmed, but there is still a surprising amount of open space and virgin forest.

 Arrived in the mammoth Shanghai-Hongqaio station just before the advertised time and hit the ultra modern Shanghai Subway with a minimum of hassle. We have shouted ourselves to a 4.5 star hotel for the last few nights in China, very nice and way cheaper than at home, but we are in the commercial area so we are in the midst of the very Western part of the city. Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC are all within striking distance. Rest assured we won't be eating there. There are actually a few back streets that we can explore for some real local food. 

 

19 October, Pacific Hotel, People's Square, Shanghai

Shanghai city seems a lot more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Beijing. People are generally better dressed and (just) a little better mannered. We took the subway out to the old suburban enclave of Qibau first up this morning. A lot of the buildings are original, but as with many of these areas in cities all over the world, commercial interests dominate at street level. While this may ruin the historical validity of the area, it does draw in the crowds and finance restoration and maintenance.

Food is a little different here in Shanghai. The amount of meat in the diet is way greater than we observed and experienced in Beijing. Last night we ate at a large restaurant in a back street behind our hotel. The servings were enormous and the amount of meat was beyond even confirmed carnivores like us.

Just across People's Square from our hotel is the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre, yet another jaw dropper. Over four floors, the exhibition features the history of urban development of this enormous city. The influences of periods of 'occupation' by the Western powers in the early 20th century and the more turbulent times of the Japanese occupation are presented in multi-media and photo displays. Naturally, the period of the Communist revolution is also there, with all its over the top rhetoric. But the centre piece of the whole thing is an enormous model of the city as it will appear in 2020, just 6 and a bit years away. Simply breath-taking!

While we fairly much had the streets to ourselves this morning when we set out at 9:00 am, this afternoon the streets around the square were packed. Saturday night in downtown Shanghai looks like being a buzz.

 

Costs in China have been mentioned from time to time so far in this blog, but it is probably time to pass some comments on prices and value for money. Firstly, it must be noted that we are basing our comments on three big cities, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Overall, prices in China are more akin to Japanese prices than general South-east Asian prices. It would be very easy in big Chinese cities to spend as much as you would in the US or Australia. However, China is a multi-level economy and if you step off the main streets you can access a second tier price structure that is fairly reasonable value for the budget traveller. Go another step and seek out the poorer parts of town and if you can overcome the communication problems and what exactly you are eating, you can get prices that approach south-eastern Asia prices.

Clothes, electronics, souvenirs etc can cost as much as in the west if you want legitimate brands and shop in the big Malls, but take a trip out to one of the enormous 'Fake Markets' in most cities and bargain a bit and you can do extremely well.

Some actual examples of costs may help. Dinner with two beers in a clean, back-street restaurant can cost  from A$12 - A$30 for two. A main street restaurant will set you back A$60 plus for the same thing. With care, costs can be kept well down by grabbing a sandwich or a street store roll for A$1-A$2 each. Japanese convenience stores like Lawsons and Family Mart are everywhere in Shanghai (but not in Beijing) a good pre-made sandwich costing A$1. Bargain level Hotels can range from $30-$120 and you get what you pay for, particularly with regard to location. Most hotels throughout Asia are of a much higher standard, at all star levels than in the West and from our experience, they are universally clean.

On the transport front, subways and buses are extremely cheap. Most subway trips will cost less than $1. In Beijing, you can travel the whole system for a flat rate of  A$0.40. All the cities we have visited have an IC Smart Card system like London's Oyster Card. For convenience alone it is well worth the effort to buy one at your first subway stop.

In summary, by Asian standards, China is not a cheap destination, but with care it is good value and still much cheaper than most Western destinations.

Hong Kong - 1

 

9 October Cosmo Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong

 Since 1997, good old “Honkers”, that exotic bastion of British Imperialism in the Far East, has been part of the People's Republic of China. From personal experience, we can't tell how much of a difference this has made to life in Hong Kong as this is our first visit. We may be naïve, but Communist ideals seem far removed from this international city. Commerce and tourism hold sway. We will soon have more to add as we are heading to Beijing and Shanghai in a few days.

As usual, our flight here was fine, nine hours, a few movies and the odd TV repeat and we were on the runway. Armed with a pre-purchased tourist pass, we hit the MTR (Hong Kong's Transport System) for the Mongkok area of Kowloon. All was well until we alighted from our train at Olympic station. We had planned this down to the right exit number, but alas, things just weren't as simple as we had anticipated. Never mind, after a half hour or so, aided by our ever reliable Samsung Tablet and its GPS, we managed to find our hotel.

 Those who know us or who read our blogs, will know how much we love 'old Asia'. Yep, the smells, the noise, the street markets, and in the extremes, ankle deep dust and muck. Most of HK isn't like that at all of course. But, we have managed, yet again, to score the closest thing there is to it in Kowloon. Here, among the towering residential blocks and freeway overpasses, right across the street from our hotel, perhaps the last of the old Chinese shop keepers in this ultra modern city, still ply their trade out of two garage size 'holes in the wall'. Everything from pots and pans, tools and bolts of cloth to bales of dried “stuff', can be purchased if you are prepared to bargain and yell a bit in Cantonese. And, yes, they are still as thin as rakes, wear singlets and thongs and look at least 100 years old. All that is missing are the 'top-knots'.

 

On the tourist front, we took the historic Peak Tram for a view of the city and the harbour, but as is fairly common in Asia, the haze took away from the view somewhat. (Not to say it wasn't absolutely worth it!) On the other hand, indoors, the HK History Museum didn't suffer at all from the weather. Just fantastic, and to top it off, it was free today.

 

From our hotel window as we write, we look out on a veritable forest of high-rise apartment buildings. HK has more than 7 million people stacked up in these towers. By our standards, not much of a life,  but despite this, westerners still flock here for work opportunities. Walking in and around  the central city today, we commented that the balance between Chinese and westerners is much the same as it is at our local shopping mall. (We do live close to a large Chinese community.)

 STOP PRESS!

While we were out for dinner tonight, workmen closed off the front door of our hotel, the Cosmo. No simple window cleaning project this. We have been upgraded! The Cosmo is now the Kowloon Dorsett. Can't you just hear us?... “Oh, just back from a few days at the Kowloon Dorsett!”

 

Back in the saddle

After many month of domestic duties, bought on by a decision to move house, we are finally ready to resume our travels.

Our initial plan was to visit China for a bit of a 'look and see', in preparation for a major trip next year through China, Mongolia and Russia. Part way through our planning, Jetstar put on one of their special deals for flights to Japan. So naturally, we grabbed it. So Osaka and southern Japan are also on our agenda.

Ah... So great to be back on the road again!