Shang-HIGH

Thursday 11th January 2007
The Pearl of the Orient Is one of the names for Shanghai (Whore of the East, is another!). This morning we took the ‘tourist tunnel’ from the Bund to Pudong – the ultra-modern side of the river. The tourist tunnel is a garish, illuminated, psychedelic way of crossing under the river in a capsule car. Very tasteless, but good fun. And what a surprise (not!) that once we were there, and standing at the ground floor entry point to the Peral Oriental Tower, I suggested to Sid (remember, his fear of heights) that we take the ride to the viewing towers at 630 metres, to get a view of this amazing city from above. Well, he conquered more demons and said, ‘let’s go for it’. It was a shame that this was our first day with some cloud so the view was not what it might have been, but pretty stunning nevertheless. Most interesting though was the municipal museum, back on the ground floor. Five exhibition halls beautifully illustrating the history of the city, with really good explanations about the British colonial period and the French Concession. We then took an afternoon three-hour boat cruise along the Huangpu River to where it joins the Yangtze River. I knew Shanghai was one of the biggest ports in the world, but that doesn’t mean much until you see the number of barges and boats on the river – masses of them shifting just about everything you can imagine. It was a very nice relaxing way to spend the afternoon, without having to absorb lots of facts which made a pleasant change after the past week of trying to drink everything in. Tonight we ate at another Lonely Planet recommendation (in the French Concession – no French influence apparent here anymore) – good food, but what we chose was far too spicy for me. That’s the trouble with eating-by-pictures – on one occasion Sid ended up with a plate of black worms, or at least that’s what it looked like but was in fact cold (not just cool, but deliberately very cold) noodles in something black. Tonight, I ended up with a chicken dish which was very tasty so long as you avoided the red bits (which was most of it) as they were the hottest, spiciest chillis I’ve ever tasted. Burning sensation saved by the best toffee bananas ever! (Sid’s just off to take his Gaviscon, in case). Lovely taxi ride back to the hotel. This city at night makes New York look like it’s suffering from power failure.