Shanghai - Day 2 & 3

Ok, I thought I would try and split the days up a bit to make it more obvious when I have added new material and to make it more accessible to you.

I visited the Shanghai Museum in the morning, which was excellent. Very like the British Museum in London, set in a strange looking building in People's Square. The square is an enormous area, which is also home to the Theatre, the Art Museum, and the City Planning exhibition centre. My afternoon was a bit lame though. I chose to take a look at a temple a few stops away on the tube, but was hoping to find food nearby. I was shocked to see that the temple was squashed in between new shops with building work at the back for new apartments styled to look like the temple. In Beijing they take loving care of their temples and make a point of respecting them. Not so here. I then embarked on my food mission, not even bothering to go in and look round. All I could find were posh, expensive looking restaurants, and I decided to keep walking down some smaller streets. I found a small bakery at about 16.00 and settled for some sort of sweet pork pies. Here began my growing dislike for Shanghai. In Beijing you dont have to walk more than a few hundred yards and you find a bustling Hutong with plenty of tasy food options, but Shanghai is more expensive and caters for the hotel, rather than hostel kind of person.

In the evening I went to the Korean resteraunt accross the street and met Tom, a fellow englishman staying at the same hostel. We went back and joined his roommates for a drink before bed. Unfortunately, my room is not so sociable. I have spent nearly all of my time here on my own :-(

Day 3

Rain, rain and more rain. Suprisingly this did not improve my mood, but I was determined to make something of the day. I had planned to go to a water town called Zhujaijiao, and decided I would do it anyway. I bumped into a Chinese speaking Beligian girl called Marie the night before and, spotting her at breakfast, cheekily asked her to write down the name of the place and the name of the bus. I had to catch it from somewhere in People's square. The internet gave me a small clue as to where so I set off in that direction and looked around employing my best helplessly lost face (which wasnt too hard as it wasnt too far from the truth). A tiny little young lady spotted me and offered to help. I was expecting a pointed finger, but I obviously still looked blank after that, so she actually walked me to the bus lane and then bumbled around until she found the right bus. At this point I we had a mis-understanding. I pointed at the bus to say, 'this one?'. She nodded and I got on. She followed and sat down nect to me! I then had to awkwardly tell her i wanted to go alone and she reluctantly left. I had considered giving her a few pennies for her trouble before boarding the bus, but hadnt wanted to encourage just this. Now she left empty-handed and embarrased and I felt terrible. I would like to say, 'lesson learnt', but Im not entirely sure i know how to avoid doing the same again. Hmmn....

The bus journey was crazy. I have been on bumpy busses before, as I am sure have you, but I had made the mistake of sitting on the back seat of this one and it was positively violent. From time to time my entire body would leave the seat without warning. Luckily I am not tall enough to have hit the ceiling, but I cant have been too far away! The water town was quite nice apart from the persistant heavy rain, of course. It is a bit like a small oriental Venice I suppose. You can take boats along the little water streets or wander the multitude of small shop filled alleyways. There were shops selling instruments, live crabs, cafe's (including the wondefully named 'Bum cafe'!) and even a pet store that had some very odd animals that I cant even begin to describe.

I managed to find the bus home by spotting the same fierce conductor lady and left, somewhat damp. Unfortunately the bus was already very full when I got in and I had only the option of the back seat again!