China march 2014 trip report Shanghai and Beijing

Figured I would start a new thread for my trip.
Anyways, starting with getting there and 1st day.

OK, my trip started out like most non-rev trips. It started with having to get to LAX on Saturday for a 1:40pm UA flight to PVG. On Friday morning the DL flight from SLC to LAX looked OK with 25 seats and being #20 on the standby list. By Friday night there was 12 seats and 42 people listed. Due to this I needed to get to the airport a few hours earlier than I wanted as I needed to get to LAX. Did not make the only UA flight (6am) that would get me to LAX for the PVG flight. With the DL flight having a very iffy chance I checked with the Southwest gate and their next flight was wide open. Since I did not want to take the chance with DL numbers I used a ZED on Southwest and made it to LAX.

Once in LAX I find out the PVG flight was running 5 hours late. Great, now I have almost 10 hours to sit around LAX. I picked LAX over SFO because of the 787 (video on demand) or the 747 (no video on demand in coach). Anyways, after a long layover I ended up not getting a business class seat but did get economy plus with middle seat empty.

With the delayed flight it put me into PVG around midnight (Sunday night), now the subway was no longer running. Luckly we have a pilot that lives there and I was staying with him while in Shanghai and he was able to pick me up at the airport.

Started off Monday heading to Nanshi (Old Town). A recommended restaurant there serves steamed buns, but lines to long so did not try them. Went across the bridge of nine turning and then went into the Yu Yuan Garden. After old town we walked through some nearby hutongs to meet up with our hosts driver. After Old Town it seems that I did not take any more photo's that afternoon and can not recall what we did. That evening we went to the Pudong district and had a drink at the Park Hyatt Shanghai located in the Shanghai World Financial Center (or bottle opener). Slightly cheaper to hit the bar on the 92nd floor and have a drink than going to the observation deck. The drink was NOT worth the price though, the view was.

Old Town was crowded, the garden was worth the cost. Next to the bottle opener they are building another skyscraper. It is very eerie, its almost complete but has no power and its strange to see such a tall building with no lights on.

Heading out of town so will post more on the trip next week.

OK, a little more on Monday as I remembered what we did in the afternoon. After Old Town we went to the bird and fish market. Lots of songbirds and more interesting was how many crickets there are. Are host said they have cricket fighting, that would have been interesting to see. Also read that crickets were for good luck. We then went to an area of Shikumen Residence. We then walked around the Xin Tian Di area without our host seeing Fuxing Park, Sinan Mansions. For whatever reason I did not take any photo's that whole afternoon.

How many hours Shanghai to Beijing by train, how was the train ride, and cost? Which city did you like best and why?

So, now on to Tuesday, but first for 29palms. The train ride was 5 hours, with 4 quick stops (under 5 minute stops) and went 300kph and its a little over 800 miles, very smooth and did not feel like you were travelling that fast, cost around $95, in 2nd class. Train station very effecient, sit in the main area and wait until about 15 minutes before the train is going to leave and they open to doors, you walk down to the train and find your seat and its off. No reason to get to the train station to early as long as you know you will not have traffic or delays getting there.
They really are two different cities, never went to 'downtown' beijing so not sure what the area is like. Shanghai was nice because we had a friend there that showed us around. I am sure we would not have seen much if we were on our own. Beijing has more tourist sites, if I had to pick one of the two I would say Beijing mainly due to the great wall.

Back to the trip report, Tuesday March 25th.

Woke up Tuesday with a little rain. We were never in a rush in the mornings as our host had children and two of them left to school around 8:15am. The 3rd child was 3 and went with us on our travels. We walked to a restaurant for breakfast at a small cafe, they got scrambled eggs and I decided to try the eggs benidect (not very good).
On the way back from breakfast our host pointed us towards the propoganda poster art center. It was very interesting to see how they depicted Americans as old and weak and the Chinese as young, large and strong (picture a chinese Popeye). They had posters from the 1940's to the 1970's.

So, after returning from breakfast and the art center we headed out to West Nanjing Road.Our host had a doctors appointment on Nanjing Raod so our day started out walking West Nanjing road West of The Peoples Square and ended up in the Peoples Square area. Nanjing Road is Shanghai's main shopping street for high end products, except for our next stop-580 West Nanjing Road. Our host left us to head to his doctors appt. so we were left to fend for ourself. This is one of the more popular 'fake' markets. There was 3 or 4 floors full of stalls selling everything from jewelry, jackets, handbags to shoes, sunglasses and silk. Again, fake market, consider everything is fake so bargain hard. I am so bad about buying anything for myself or friends/family that I did not end up getting anything. My friend however bought a couple of handbags. Her thought was even though you know the bags are fake (bags like Prada, Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo) as long as they seem to be made well, stitching not falling apart, and you like the look you just can not buy a no name handbag in the states for the price. Again, bargain, they start off at ridiculous prices like $100 USD, and you can normally get them down to $10-$15 USD. These stores ended up being on my top 5 of things to see as its fun trying to see how low they will go. Remember, once you start looking at something you will probably not get out of the stall without buying something.

After the shopping we headed towards the office building where we met up again with our host. Ended up going to a mall on the East side of Peoples Park to eat at the food court. Hungry and undecided of what anyone wanted we ate one of the very few western meals on our trip with a burger at Carls Jr.

Our host needed to pick up his youngest from a preschool, my friend ended up going with him as I decided to walk around People's Park and to visit the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. They had one floor with a 1/500 scale model of Shanghai. I believe it was originally built for the 2010 world fair, it really shows how big the city is.

After that I went back to the house to relax before heading out for a traditional Chinese acrobat show at Shanghai Circus World. The show would have been better except I had seen a lot of the show on America's Got Talent. Examples, person balancing on a board while flipping up bowls from the board to his head- On AGT there was a person on a unicycle flipping bowls from her foot to her head. Another was of someone doing flips/twists from a flexable board held up by two peoples shoulders-again seen on AGT. Then for whatever reason the final part of the show was one of those motorcycle globes of death-seen at state fairs where motorcycles get inside a sphere and ride around without crashing. Did not seem appropriate for an acrobatic show. If it was not for seeing a lot of the parts of the show it would have been much better.

The biggest thing that's avoiding me from going to PVG/PEK is the Pollution!!! Can't do it..I will bypass to BKK,SIN etc...

Chinese propaganda is alive and well in the name of communism despite their super economic attraction and strength. Excellent history.

ddagencylv, PVG pollution is not bad compared to PEK. Last month in PEK the ppm numbers were in the 800-900 range, on Thursday of our trip it was around 300ppm, Friday and Saturday were lower (did not check online, just going off of seeing blue sky). Just to note, here in SLC on bad days in the winter the ppm count gets up around 300.

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Originally Posted by offroader

ddagencylv, PVG pollution is not bad compared to PEK. Last month in PEK the ppm numbers were in the 800-900 range, on Thursday of our trip it was around 300ppm, Friday and Saturday were lower (did not check online, just going off of seeing blue sky). Just to note, here in SLC on bad days in the winter the ppm count gets up around 300.

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OK so that's triple SLC on a bad day? I saw vids where it looked like MEX , LAX , ONT circa 1988. Got to think about that..

I guess I should add some more of this trip, first, here is a video of some crazy Russians (I believe) climbing the new building in shanghai to the top of the crane, great views.

So, on Wednesday March 26th we headed out in the morning to Zhujiajiao. I thought this water town was one of the more interesting places we went in Shanghai and would be worth a visit if heading to Shanghai. It is really set up for tourist, you can take boat rides and walk around with lots of little shops selling things from chopsticks to silk comforters. Lot of places selling pigs feet, snout, other big pieces of meat (maybe pig?). I had some type of rice with meat wrapped in a leaf, the rice was VERY bland. It was not overly crowded while we were there, we walked around the town and also went to the Kezhi Garden.

After Zhujiajiao on the way back to the house we stopped off for grocery shopping. Our host pointed out issues with shopping. We happen to be standing around the hair care products and he pointed to the head & shoulders and asked us to pick out the shampoo. He mentioned this because the brand name of products you are familiar with but what the product is was in Chinese so picking out shampoo and not conditioner was a guessing game. After shopping we headed to the house for a few hours to do laundry, pack, eat dinner and have a birthday party for our hosts son.
After that we headed to the peoples square to walk down East Nanjing Road to the Bund. I was able to get some night shots of the skyline of the Pudong district (skyscrappers) from the Bund side of the river and a few for a panarama shot (5 images stiched together with Microsoft ICE-good free stiching progam) to print out and hang with my 17"x62" panarama of Hong Kong. This one will not be as long though, I think my Hong Kong pano was 11 images.

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