Back to the Future

This part of the world is a strange place... where East meets West and a portal into the future can be found from the driving seat of the past… welcome to Shanghai.

First impressions - I had somehow found a back way into Europe as Shanghai feels like just another western city compared to its more oriental Chinese compatriots. The main area (Nanjing Road) was a pedestrianized strip of shops (including a Marks & Spencers) and Caucasians were more frequent here than in the other cities we’d visited but that didn’t stop the Chinese tourists from out of town stopping us to take photos and practicing their English.

Such an occurrence involved a group of 4 people our age being way enthusiastic and inviting us along to a tea ceremony on the Bund. Ok, we had been warned about tea ceremonies and their extortionate pricing but these guys didn’t seem like scam artists so we hesitantly decided to accompany them… and it turned out to be a load of fun and only £20 less in the pocket by the end of it (we’ve heard stories of foreigners being billed in the excess of £100, so we did good). The guys were all very competent in their English skills and translated the tea hostess’ explanation of the history of the tea’s we tried (gensing and jasmine) and the appropriate way of drinking it (different techniques for different teas but you do stick out your smallest finger!), which we supped for over an hour.

The Bund is a stretch of colonial buildings from the time when Britain and France were trying to put their stamp on China, leaving an impressive line of architecture. A look across the river, you seem to gaze through a time portal into the future. A concentrated array of distinctive high-rises strikes the eye, including the famously space-shaped Oriental Pearl TV tower , all amassed together with skywalks for pedestrians to navigate between these towers of glass and steel. Truly other-worldly.

Night-time brings you back to the present with its neon clad signs electrifying the walkways (not literally), locals trying to sell luminous gimmicks and street performers adding to the hubbub of noise of the night-birds (us) enjoying the town.

An audible blast from the past greeted us when the air-raid sirens went off… as part of a National military related Awareness Day, a one off practice of evacuation procedures nationwide though no action was required on our part. Security is a big thing here in general with bag scans present on all tube stations, within main attractions and police seem to be ever present.

Off the serious topic and onto food… our best food yet was found a stones throw from our hostel. Consisting of 3 dishes: beef in black pepper sauce with green peppers and onions, green pepper in a sweet chilli sauce with mini Chinese chillies and scrambled egg with chives in a garlic sauce… it blew our minds (the chillies quite literally did) for less than £7.

All in all Shanghai was definitely a full on experience!

Good times.