China, China, China (Part 1)

I just got back from a wonderful 11 day trip to China with my friend Rebecca.  Thankfully, we were given a Royal holiday after our Easter holiday, so 11 days off was actually only 3 working days.  I love this country!!!! :)

We set out on a 12 hour flight and landed in Shanghai.  The Shanghai airport is absolutely enormous with over 220 gates.  After walking about 3 miles or so, we found our bus that drove us the hour into Shanghai.  The bus ride cost us about £2.70.  Here is a photo leaving the airport.

 

Rebecca and I were surprisingly alert on the bus.  The bus was a coach and did not have many people on it.

 

The most shocking thing about Shanghai is the amount of skyscrapers.  I have never seen so many and they just continued mile after mile.

In the distance you can see the Shanghai World Financial Center building which has an enormous hole in the top portion.  It houses the second highest hotel in the world.

When we reached our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised by it since we only found it through recommendations on TripAdvisor.

Our nice bathroom.

 

We were located on the 17th floor.  Here is Rebecca taking in the view.

We took a quick nap and then headed out.  We decided to try out the subway.  It was super easy to buy tickets from the machines since you could pick one button and everything turns into English.  One way to our destination cost us about £0.30!

We headed to an area called the French Concession to walk around.  In 1843, the British negotiated a deal with the Chinese to establish a zone of self-rule for foreign powers.  The French decided they did not want to join and made their own area.  The area use to look like a French town, but has changed over the years.

When we exited the subway, we were greeted by a familiar site!  They are everywhere.

The street was lined with lights and small lanterns in the trees.  It was very pretty. 

The street was also filled with many high end stores.  Shoes anyone?  They only cost around £680!

Jackie Chan was also extremely popular and we found him on billboards everywhere.

We walked by this restaurant that had a fish tank for its entrance.  People kept stopping to have a look at it while I took a photo.

My impression of Shanghai at night is that its a little like Vegas....but it doesn't know it.

After our walk, we headed to a restaurant that was recommended in Rebecca's guidebook for spicy food.  I burned my mouth off the entire time, but it was great fun.

I was surprised that Strongbow was on the menu so of course I had to have one.  At the end of dinner I was looking at the bottles and despite the fact that I can't read anything...the date was very clear.  I do believe the ciders I drank expired 2 years ago! :o  Too funny.

Since we were only in Shanghai for 24 hours, we decided to head out to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium.  While this would probably not be the first choice for sightseeing for some, my guidebook said it was one of the best aquariums in the world.  So we had to check it out.  

It is right next to the Oriental Pearl Tower.  You will see throughout my photos that we encountered serious hazy weather during our trip in China.  While there were days that you could see pollution, the haze seemed to follow us.  A person we spoke to said that the lack of rain was the problem.

 The aquarium.

Rebecca and I were the only Westerners at the aquarium which resulted in many stares, pointing, and some photos.  We pretty much got the same response everywhere on our trip.  We could not figure out if it was because we were Westerners or if they were just shocked by my overly pasty white legs!

The aquarium was over many different levels and there were so many tanks.  And the fun part was, you got to go through many of them.  Here is an escalator (on right) going through the crocodile pond.

The fish tanks were wonderful.

The jellyfish were even better!  Just amazing.
 

I told myself I had to do more videos this trip.  But I think I really just did most of my videos at the aquarium because the place was great.

 

We also went through tunnel after tunnel filled with fish.  Here is a blurry self portrait of us on one of the many moving walkways.

Each tank had a different theme.  This schooling tank was great.

 

Every floor had something fun to look at.  I enjoyed these little guys.

 

We came across the stingray tank and they were so active.  After being there for a few minutes, a scuba diver jumped in to feed them which explained their excitement.

We had a wonderful time at the aquarium.  We then headed back to our hotel to pick up our things and fly to Guilin.  More to follow on the next adventure.