So now we are in Shanghai and it is less cold and dirty than Beijing and Xi'an. Outside the train station were street sweepers, something of a surprise! Mei's friend met us at the train station and we were taken to our hotel and to her house for lunch. Unfortunately I had not a trace of appetite, and jiao zi kind of don't agree with me even at the best of times, at least not the pale, meaty kind. [That is, steamed as opposed to fried.] Since then I've been in this hotel room.

So, Shanghai. Seems like kind of a nice place. We're just out of the main city, five minutes walk from Ling's place, a nice Shanghai neighbourhood. The city looks less messy and dirty and old than Beijing or Xi'an - more modern and organised, the (clean!) windows of buildings gleaming in the sunshine. There *is* sunshine! Ling said that Shanghai is also a city of bridges, and we did pass over a few. Maybe it's a little more Westernised too. This is 'new China'. Tomorrow we're gonna hit the highlights of Shanghai.

Oh yeah... I'm sitting here half-watching TV. They had a kind of "funniest home videos" show. There are always several very *Chinese* things on air - people talking about Chinese history, Chinese opera and singing, historical dramas, kung fu shows, etc.

I actually found a TV show I liked! It's kind of a soapie, called Meteor Garden (series 2). Mei gave periodic summaries of what they were saying. I was originally interested because the first season of Meteor Garden was the 'real world' adaption of an anime I had once enjoyed, Hana Yori Dango, so I felt like I kind of knew some of the characters. Also, I started watching it to look at the cute guy Dao Ming Si, and got interested in the story.

Dao Ming Si had lost his memory, and his old girlfriend was looking for him, while he was falling in love with this new girl, with no memory of the first one. It sounds dumb but it was interesting. In my last entry I closed by saying I wanted an early night, but then I ended up watching Meteor Garden for two hours and going to bed at 11:30!

I bought an F4 book with lots of cool pictures and a VCD. (F4 are the four main actors in Meteor Garden, and also a very popular band. I've seen them in several ads, including Pepsi, on the walls of KFC, in a clothing store...) I think at least two of the F4 guys are pretty cute! I'm also glad to get an interest in another element of Chinese culture. ^_^.

12 Dec - Thur - 5:05pm

We are now in Hangzhou. We had to get up at 5:10am to get the train here, but we're here. It's only a two-hour train trip from Shanghai.

So, yesterday in Shanghai we hooked up with Ling and took a train and two taxis to the city. Although our train stop was the first one, we had to *run* onto the train to get a seat! It was pretty funny seeing everyone making a mad dash for the seats.

We first went to that famous street and river, the Huangpu. It was really nice there, it kind of reminded me of Singapore, only cooler. The weather in Shanghai was much nicer than Beijing and Xi'an!

There are a lot of people in Shanghai, especially in some shopping areas and train stations. I heard it said that the main sight to see in Shanghai is the back of people's heads.

We had something of an ordeal getting my traveller's cheques cashed but did it at last, and also organised some more of our trip, including buying the plane tickets to Shenzhen. We had lunch (honey chicken with steamed rice - not nice, the chicken was fatty and had bones) in a restaurant with such a nice view of the Huangpu and the street of cool, old Western-style buildings on the other side of the road. [The Bund.]

We crossed the river on a boat and went to the tallest building in China, the third tallest building in the world, Jin Mao (see right). We took a lift to the observation deck, 88 floors up. The lift rose at 9m/sec - I was standing there bracing myself for it to start, several seconds after it actually had... we were at about level 8 by the time I realised we were moving.

The view of the city was so cool. All these tall buildings looked so short compared to where we were. The windows had all these place names - if you looked forward from this window, it was x miles to x city, straight ahead. Beijing and Xi'an, Sydney and Rome, Los Angeles and Paris... it was an amazing view, I really enjoyed it. There was also an 'atrium' where you could peer right down at L56 or something.

Near this tallest building was another very tall building, the famous Oriental Pearl Tower, which is very interesting-looking, it looks like a needle set with glittering spheres. We walked to it but didn't wanna pay another 50 yuan to climb another tower and see a similar view.

After seeing these cool buildings we went to see Nanjing Road, a pedestrian mall with so many people, but we didn't go on it ourselves, just saw it from a pedestrian walkway overhead.

Finally we went to Chang Huang Miao, a shopping district, which was cool - just wandering around looking at stuff, enjoying the beauty and coolness of the city at night. There weren't all that many people around. We walked down the 9-curved bridge, over beautiful still water reflecting the lights of the surrounding buildings. Everything was great. Mei bought me a set of cute crystal pigs for 10 yuan 'cos my Chinese starsign is the pig. ^_^.

I really enjoyed my day in Shanghai.

That night after getting back we took our luggage to Ling's family's house, just keeping a few essentials to bring to Hangzhou, where we are staying for two nights. It's nice to finally take a train without lugging huge suitcases with us! Ling's family is very nice, her mum is also very nice - taking my suitcase, offering to wash clothes, looking after our stuff, telling me to eat more, wear more, etc. A kind family.

Any interesting observations to make about Shanghai? Hmm... it's a bit more Westernised, and there are more things in English (albeit not many more)... there are big, shining new buildings but also Chinese streets - rows of little shops with Chinese characters, selling miscellany. It's "new China" but still China. Lots of people. Saw quite a few people with those little carts, barbequeing meat.

Perhaps Shanghai is more feminist, because I saw my first female taxi driver, and my first woman spitting on the street.

In a Shanghai taxi I was happy to see some instructions in English, and read them, because to see anything in English is kind of "yay, now I can find out what's going on!" One phrase that stuck out in my mind: "Psychos and drunkens without a guardian... (may be denied service etc.)"

Another sign in a Shanghai taxi read something like "no conniving at the driver regarding violation of passenger transport rules". I laughed, interpreting it as "if the driver is violating passenger transport rules, don't bug him about it". A different taxi had its rules worded differently, through which I learned that this peculiar statement meant we weren't supposed to encourage the driver to break the rules. Also, 'psychos' meant 'schizophrenics'. You would never see anyone dare post such a statement in Australia, but I found it funny.

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