Day 134: Yet more Christmas.

DAY 5: SUZHOU -> SHANGHAI

So, I got up early in Suzhou, and looked at the map, and worked out what the suggested route I had written down looked like. Nikki wasn't well though (just a cold, but she still felt rubbish), so we did the walk slowly (it wasn't that great, but we did see a lot of Suzhou), then we sat in Starbucks for a while to let Nikki rest (shh), then went to the train station to get the train to Shanghai.

One of our classmates who lives in Shanghai said we could stay with her, so we toddled off to her house on the subway, and when we got there some of their friends were over. They were having a Christmas Eve party before going out on the town. However, nobody made it out as people had to leave early as they were working on Tuesday etc., so by the end there were only a few of us left. Another classmate who was supposed to be going to Singapore on Christmas Eve had changed her flight to Christmas Day(!), but she couldn't come over so we didn't get to see her.

DAY 6: SHANGHAI

Christmas! We dragged ourselves out of bed around 11am, and lazed around a bit. It was nice to just sit and do nothing, and Francesca (our classmate) and Justin (her flatmate) opened their presents. Around 5pm, we finally made it out to go and get Christmas Dinner at O'Malley's, an Irish pub. But when we got there, we discovered it was reservations only and they stopped serving at 6pm. And it was 6:10pm when we got there. So we went around the corner to British Bulldog (on Urumqi Road!), where we were met by Nikki's tandem partner from Newcastle, Vanessa. After the starter (a salad with the smallest piece of salmon I've ever seen), we got the traditional dinner, turkey, potatoes, sprouts (which I still don't like), stuffing, gravy, cranberry etc.:



Then it was apple crumble pie for desert, which was really good. The meal came with a free glass of wine (but then, the whole meal was 228 kuai, so I expected something really). I phoned my mum (and spoke to everyone, including my grandparents), then we went off to a pub called Windows Scoreboard, where we had a few drinks and some games, which were highly amusing:



After sitting there for a while, we went off to a club called Babyface, and danced the night away until 4am. The taxi home cost 50 kuai (Urumqi taxi drivers make around 500 a month, so that is phenomenally expensive). All in all, a good Christmas.

DAY 7: SHANGHAI

Boxing day, we decided to see some of the touristy things in Shanghai (of which there aren't many). So we jumped on the metro to the old town, which I like to call Tourist Trap Town. People by the BILLION came up to us with little leaflets overing us "shoes, bag, watches" in a variety of brands: "Adidas, Nike, qreyhqoeiguioj" (I never did work out what the last one was). We found an old teahouse, which is quite famous. It's in the middle of a little pondy thing, and has a zig-zag path to it for protection. Evil spirits can't turn corners, you see.



We then paid 60 kuai for a cup of what was essentially wet grass. I have never seen so many tea leaves in one cup of tea in my life, it was horrible. Nikki removed around half from hers, and it was still too much, but now she had a pocketful of soggy leaves. After forcing a couple of cups down (they add hot water as many times as you want for free), we toddled off to see the French Concession, but not before taking some photos of the pretty lit up buildings:



The French concession was cool, all big buildings and lights and western things. We walked around there for a while, and headed to the bund. The bund is essentially the bit along the river, with lots of big old colonial buildings, which you will undoubtedly have seen in pictures of Shanghai (although probably not realised that's what it was).

The sightseeing tunnel under the river was...an experience. It's worth doing once, but for the love of God don't get a return. It's awful. It's tacky, cheesy and naff. All at once. At the other side, we climbed the Jinmao tower (once the tallest building in Shanghai, possibly China, I forget now):



The view from the top was quite good, but the windows were dirty, so I couldn't really get good photos. Here's two anyway:


(I just like this one because it mentions both Urumqi and London)


At the top of the Jinmao Tower, they have what is officially the tallest post office in the world, 88 floors up. As I couldn't resist, I bought some postcards and posted them from the tallest postbox in the world:



Back on the floor, my legs were too shaky to do much, so we searched for a restaurant. Not fun. We went to one recommended in the Lonely Planet, and it was closed. So we went to another recommended restaurant, also closed. So then a third, which was also closed. Eventually, we found a stupidly expensive restaurant which was still open, after which we returned home and flopped into bed.