Shanghai - no smog but fog

With the high-speed train (top speed 308kmh), we went from Beijing to Shanghai in just under 6 hours. The delay upon arrival was a meager 10 minutes (Greetings to Deutsche Bahn)!

We continued by subway towards East Nanjing Road. We had never been on such a crowded train before, but no one here seems to mind. The motto here is: 'One goes, one more gets on' subway.

Our hostel was sensational, a mega rooftop terrace, a double room with its own toilet and shower (already luxury :-) ) and that even though our room size (including bathroom) was about 10 sqm. Small but nice.

The next morning, we had a leisurely coffee at the hostel, checked the internet for things to do / where things are located, and tried to solve our various phone/internet problems (I can only say, downloading a VPN client onto a Sony phone to be able to use Google, etc. is not easy when the app store is also from Google :-) ). Fortunately, we met Florence and Philip from Hamburg right away, who were familiar with our problem and were able to solve it.

We made plans to have dinner with them, but Philip stayed at the hostel (he had watched the Champions League the night before). Instead, someone else rushed after us in the elevator. Nicholas, a really cool guy from Texas, joined us and became our companion for the next few days.

Unfortunately, the weather in Shanghai didn't cooperate that well, 7 days in Shanghai, 5 rainy days!! Okay, they are not comparable to rainy days in Germany, after all it's still 25 degrees Celsius and it only rains a little bit now and then or for 2 hours straight, but we would have liked better weather.

Nevertheless, we (Rahel, Nicholas, and I) set off on Thursday towards the French Consession (a super old and mega beautiful shopping district) and took a stroll around. We didn't really buy anything, but we treated ourselves well in a tea house (Tea Celebration like the Chinese do) and then stocked up on some good tea.

On the way back, we also went to the Yu Garden, which was quite nice and would probably be even nicer to look at if it wasn't pouring rain. But instead of enjoying it, we were mostly just trying to get through it.

In the evening, we went to the Bund for the typical tourist pictures, unfortunately we couldn't see much of the skyline (to take pictures), because the weather still didn't cooperate. But it was an experience anyway!

On Friday, it was time to say goodbye to Nicholas and we also had to change hostels, but we made plans to meet Florence and Philip again for the coming days.

Our new hostel was in a completely different neighborhood, much more Western. Pizza, pasta, burgers, etc. were all around the corner.

So, exactly our thing, just not necessarily what we had imagined for our trip to China. The hostel itself didn't have much charm either. The guests were mostly Americans and Brits, which could be immediately noticed by the noise level, the alcohol consumption on the terrace, and the trash the next day. We felt a bit nostalgic for the old hostel, even though our room was great (except for our brutally hard bed: I hardly felt a mattress, just feathers :-( ).

We also spent the last few days trying to finally get our Beijing post online, but the wifi in the hostel was so slow that it was almost impossible. But only almost ;-)

Other than that, we familiarized ourselves with the neighborhood and advanced our travel planning.

Saturday, October 1st, was National Day in China, a big event, and that's when the golden week begins: a week-long vacation for almost everyone in China!!! Which means chaos breaks out. Not the chaos that we know or that you are imagining right now, but real chaos. (More on that later)

Nevertheless, Florence, Philip, and we went up the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world (632m), to admire Shanghai from above. Impressive, especially when you've been seeing the buildings for the past few days, but never in their full glory (usually only halfway up because of the bad weather).

After that, it was time to say goodbye again, as the last two of our Shanghai clique moved on.

All the best to you two, it was a great time and I hope to see you in Hamburg sometime :-) (It's simply nicer than Pforzheim, but of course you are also welcome to visit us)

On Sunday, the chaos was complete, as if all the Chinese had finally arrived in Shanghai. We promised you examples of the chaos earlier, here are two:

The East Nanjing Road subway station is closed (Sat and Sun) because 11 people were trampled to death there last year!!

At People Square, the military regulates the traffic at the major intersections to avoid chaos and injuries. --> I hope I can somehow upload the videos, otherwise check out the pictures!!!!

We tried to escape the chaos and headed towards the Xintiandi district. A nice shopping street, where the buildings are still made of bricks and it's a bit quieter.

But the weather was great again, so we ventured into the hustle and bustle one more time to get some more pictures of the Bund, where you can see the entire skyline in all its glory.

For the farewell, we returned to the terrace of our old hostel to have a beer in peace and then try to get a taxi somehow. We tried to explain to the driver where we wanted to go using gestures and hand signals. Even Google Maps in Chinese didn't help much because he couldn't read it even with a magnifying glass :-) . He was simply blind!!!!! In the end, we arrived safely at the hostel. Things just somehow always work out....

The last few days have been enough big city, people, excitement and everything, so now we are quite happy to be able to pack our things and move back to the countryside in Wuyishan for a few days.

So, all that's left to say is Shi shi Shanghai and welcome to Wuyishan