I'm in Shanghai!!!

It's a place I've always dreamt of travelling to, perhaps the very first place that I wanted to go.

I don't really know why. At one point I wanted to live here. Whilst I don't have plans to move here anymore, it was still really exciting to come here, the jewel in China's crown.

My arrival was a little rough - having to do my fingerprints twice because I dropped the confirmation slip. Luckily my border guard was very friendly and I got my bag very quickly. The taxi system was a bit of a mess with lots of shouting and arm waving as masses crowded the taxi rank. Soon though I was speeding across the Shanghai expressways in the only nonVW Touran taxi to my hostel.

After breakfast on the roof top cafe I headed out to the French Concession area. During China's 'century of humiliation' Shanghai as the country's main port was divided up between European powers. The French area is famous today for retaining its architecture. Getting there involved navigating the Shanghai metro.

Shanghai bizarrely didn't feel that crowded at all. It's a city that feels big vertically rather than laterally or population wise. Everywhere you look there's cranes or skyscrapers towering over you.

Yet on the ground, the authentic China remains. The closer to the river you get the more Western and quite frankly London-like it gets. But just 20minutes from the riverfront at my hostel there's still a very rustic Chinese feel. People spitting in the streets, motorbikes running over you, the stench of durian and homeless migrants. Shanghai isnt known as heaven for the rich and hell for the poor for nothing.

My favourite place is definitely the Bund. Whilst I did accidentally crash a wedding photo to get there, strolling along the Bund is absolutely the highlight of any visit to Shanghai. In the 1990s the Pudong was a flat worthless marshland. Now it's a bustling financial centre, a symbol of China's economic power and home to the most startling skyline on Earth.

Especially enjoyable was coming back at sunset and to see the skyscrapers light up for the evening. They overlook the old fashioned Bund, home to the British banks that initiated (or rather forced) Shanghai's international trading tradition.

Shanghai is a city of big bucks, of huge sprinkling clean malls and monstrous traffic. The air was certainly a lot cleaner than Singapore's, the weather today was glorious. But, the cracks in Shanghai's facade are very easy to spot.

There's not much more to Shanghai to see but because it's a place that inspired me to travel when I was younger I really wanted to come here. And it's not disappointed.

Ciao!