May 5th Shanghai. Our ferry had actually come in a little north of Shanghai, so we took a local bus to the bus terminal. Everything in the city was new, from the ferry termianl to the bus terminal and everything in between. The rate of building was incredible, if someone had told me that 6 months the city had been a fishing village, I would have believed them.On the boat we had started talking with 2 Japanese guys and another guy who happened to be from Taiwan,who spoke Japanese but lived in Xian. They told us that they were all going into central Shanghai and that we could tag along with them, which was great and made me feel happier. We followed the guys through the bus terminal and the man from Taiwan bought our bus tickets for us.
When we got off the bus in Shanghai,he took us to the subway station and sent us on our way. Nice guy.
Thanks to some advance work we had done while still in Muroran, we easily got to the right subway station for our hostel and then it was just a 15 min walk. It was great to get to the hostel and be able to dump our bags. We were in a small 4 person room with no windows, but I didn't care. It had air conditioning, not something that I would have needed a few days before.We went to a local hole in the wall and ate the local specialty, noodle soup, and then loitered around our hostel. We started talking to a few people and ended up having a big group of people to have dinner with. It was really nice to talk with other English speakers and hear about what other people were doing. Despite being on the start of my own trip, I was still envious of other peoples. So we went out to dinner with Scott,Mark,Blake, Emma (from England),Kenny and Felix. We ended up going to karaoke as well, which took a weird turn when the staff wanted to dump some other westerners in with us.It wouldn't have been a problem if we had known them!!!So all in all a pretty good first day in Shanghai.
After a surprisingly good nights sleep we decided to get out and about and see the city. From our hostel we headed to the river, so I could get my first glimpse of the famous Shanghai skyline. It was a nice day and walking without a rucksack was a pleasure. Along the river side there is a park, but this is closed at the moment. Shanghai is preparing for the expo in 2010 and this has given them a legimate excuse for more building work.So anyway, the park was closed and we had to take our lives in our hands crossing the road. After Japan, China came as a big shock to me.We then headed to the old town to see some old Chinese buildings and the famous 9 turning bridge. Appararently evil cannot turn corners,so they built a bridge with 9 corners on it. After this we went into the Yuyuan garden, this was the garden of the top guy in Shanghai. It is an amazing garden, an oasis of peace in downtown Shanghai and so beautiful. It was a nice place to linger and ease off the stress of the city.Then it was on to People's Square, here the park is nice, but you can't sit on the grass, which I was very disappointed with,especially as it was such a lovely day. A place to laze about and enjoy the good weather was definitely required.We headed back to the hostel to book trains,planes and hostels for the rest of our China trip. We ate overpriced food at the hostel and had an early night.