Downtown Shopping and a Heavenly Meal

Friday 25 August

Yet another lie in this morning – not due at the coach until 10.00 – so a late breakfast was called for. On arriving at the dining room, no tables were laid up. There was a large area of buffet food, but cutlery was hard to find – in fact we never found any spoons at all – and everything was help yourself – find your own plates, cups, saucers, etc. The food wasn’t all that great either. Colin decided to have his usual cornflakes, rice krispies and fruit, followed by boiled egg and soldiers – but where were the spoons? One of the waitresses provided him with a Chinese soup spoon – all she could find – quite a feat to eat a boiled egg with one of those.

When we arrived in the Lobby, our group were waiting in the “non-drinking’ end of the bar. Two female bar staff were standing by glaring at the group and we heard that Dave had been playing with Dilan (aged 5) – high fives and the sort of games that amuse youngsters – when he had been told in no uncertain terms to ‘be quiet’. This is just another example of just how bad this hotel is. I am sure all the group will be putting their thoughts about the trip on email to Oriental Travel, and one point we will all agree on will be that this hotel should be changed for any future itineraries. (We had yet to find out later this evening that no cocktails could be served – no reason – just NO cocktails). I would be interested to know which hotels others have stayed in – they must be better than the New Century Best Western.

The first stop on our sojourn today was The Bund – basically the Embankment along the Hungpo River that courses its way through the centre of the city. I was a bit disappointed – I had heard of The Bund before, as a highlight of Shanghai, but it was full of market traders (where isn’t in China, and families promenading, with great views of the Manhattan style buildings of the Finance Centre and hotels across the water. But is this very different to what you can see in London? Or many other cities with rivers? Anyway we were only given half an hour, so we wandered along with everyone else and returned in plenty of time.

Our next stop was a walk through the underpass to cross the road to the main shopping street – Nanjing Road. We could spend all day here – we only needed to be back to hotel in time to go out tonight at 19.00! My first impression was this was a cross between the glamour of the old, but extremely dirty, colonial buildings (mostly hotels at the start of the street) – a bit like Regent Street in London - and any high street in England – further along the shops became a mix of modern department stores and small individual shops. The six of us (Sue, Dave, Avril, John, Colin and me) decided to stay together (none of the men were interested in shopping so could have a good gossip while we ladies browsed). Our first stop was a very nice coffee bar, where we rested for half an hour drinking cappuccinos, jasmine tea or smoothies. We then got down to serious shopping – looking in all the ladies departments – I was looking for more cut-offs – the zip has broken in one of mine, so would have liked to replace them. Avril was looking for dressy black trousers and tops, and Sue was looking for presents for their grandchildren. Avril and Sue both bought parasols to go with the silk outfits from the factory. Its quite demoralizing looking for clothes – they definitely don’t cater for HUGE American / European sizes – I suppose most Chinese people are petite and most ranges only go up to an English size 10! Avril did manage to find a nice fuchsia coloured top, and then we gave up and went looking for shoes.

I found a pair of white ‘Betty Boo’ sandals with sparkles and Avril bought a glittery pair of blue sandals. That was the extent of our purchases. Very restrained – it was hot and lots of people were crammed into the shops – it was just too uncomfortable. So we decided it was time for lunch. We went to a ‘sandwich bar’ and had super size paninis – no wonder we can’t fit in the clothes. Then a short stroll to work off a few calories and it was a taxi back to the hotel – he only charged us 20 yuan this time – we were definitely caught last night.

Tonight we were going to the fourth tallest building in the world to have dinner – at the Hyatt Hotel. It occupies floors 54 to 88 of one of the skyscrapers (the rest is Finance Offices) along the river front. We met in the bar, and as previously explained had to make do with beers - NO cocktails. The coach took us on a ride around town to see all the lights – the Government only allows the lights to be on from 19.00 till 22.00 – saving electricity (although they were still on when we got back to the hotel around 23.15 – someone must have forgotten to pull the plug). Coloured lights are very alluring and it was great fun just watching some of the adverts change – Aurora (not sure what that is) had a large display of different flowers – daffodils, orchids, roses, peonies, etc – just rolling round. Several buildings kept changing colours. The top of the Hyatt was like a wedding cake – tiers of white lights up to a central spire – not necessarily one of the most spectacular, but it was high up. The Oriental Pearl TV tower is like Telecom Towers in Berlin, Auckland, and many other cities – it looks like a spaceship from Star Trek with a large round globe at the base and another smaller globe very high up – that contains a revolving restaurant – and a long, long spire on top – its actually taller than the fourth tallest building in the world, but doesn’t count as it’s a spire! In between the two globes here are five smaller globes which form part of a hotel, with only 20 rooms – 4 to each globe. These rooms have no windows. I dread to think how much it would cost to stay there, but it would be mighty interesting to see the rooms – is it claustrophobic? Or are the rooms so large it doesn’t matter that there’s no windows?

I thought the restaurant was going to be on the 84th floor, but silly me, hotel restaurants are on the first floor (54th in this case). We had a secluded corner in this semi-circular restaurant all decorated in black and gold. We could still watch the lights, including the boats sailing up and down the river, whilst eating our dinner. In fact, between first and second courses there was a spectacular firework display on the river, almost right in front of us. This went on for about twenty minutes – lots and lots of coloured lights exploding from both sides of the river. (It was god of Lei to arrange this for my birthday treat!!)

The food here was out of this world – it was buffet style – and I chose lots of shellfish to start – mussels, scallops, lobster claws, clams and my favourite – oysters. I know there were other starter dishes, but the seafood was sublime. For main course, I chose rare (and it was really red) roast beef with a selection of salads. But there were lots of other dishes to choose from – Colin had lamb as part of his meal, and lots of people selected the Roast Duck Peking style. For dessert, I had cheese and fruit – but Colin, and I must say most of the men – sampled all the gateaux, cream caramels, cheesecakes, etc. It was all very delicious and exquisitely presented. We were on a table with Harry and Lucinda and Harry chose a bottle of very smooth Shiraz to drink – I think it was very expensive, but he insisted on paying, which was very kind.

Then came cake time! After we had all stuffed ourselves, Lei produces a massive round, creamy, choclolate covered creation, with sponge at the base and just one candle on the top – he said he understood European ladies do not tell their age! So I had to cut the first slice – it was just like cutting a wedding cake – and everyone had to have a slice. As I went to sit down, the Restaurant Manager of the Hyatt came up with another cake and a birthday card from this Hotel – the cake this time was chocolate. But it was just too much – we were all full – so I took it back to the Hotel (in fact I had to leave it for the lady who cleaned our room).

Then it was back to the hotel on the coach, where everyone sang Happy Birthday, and we said our Goodbyes – our flight was to Guilin was at 08.15 tomorrow morning so we would be leaving the hotel at 06.30 – just when everyone else was getting their wake up call. Sadly no one else is going on the Hong Kong extension, so we will be on our own for the next week. Harry and Lucinda, with Aaron and Natalie, are going straight to Hong Kong for a couple of days – to shop. Lucinda has been Queen of the Shops during this trip. She has never been known to pass a store without popping in and coming out with a carrier bag. Harry can’t complain though – he went shopping for buses for the Prime Minister of Trinidad! – who he apparently kept in touch with throughout the holiday!

It is strange to think of everyone returning home while we are still traveling – deja vue from the train. But we met some really nice people and as a memento of our trip, Lei presented us all with little embroidered pouches containing everyone’s email address, so hopefully we will be able to keep in touch.

Shanghai is a very cosmopolitan city which, to us, didn’t have a lot to offer to tourists – a museum, a Buddha, and shopping - perhaps it was just that Jasmine, our guide, was quite unapproachable and didn’t share her thoughts and feelings about China with us as other guides had – so we didn’t feel close to the city. She did her job efficiently, but we garnered no extra information about Shanghai – she was a Souzhou girl and enthused about that city, but still shared very few personal details with us (on the train Ian told us to try and get the guides to talk about themselves – if they do, they will be good). Shanghai is definitely not a city I would put on my list to return to in a hurry – although Souzhou was delightful – best hotel of this tour, so far, as well - and I could see us enjoying a city break there.

Tomorrow it’s yet another side of China – Guilin – a rural region, where more people are farmers than live in the city.