Weekend in Shanghai

Trace and I had a weekend in Shanghai this weekend. It was pretty cool except for a few problems with trains and dealing with people hassling us in the street. In Shanghai, we managed to make it to Cloud 9, an exclusive bar/restaurant on the 87th floor of a building that is apparently the 4th largest building in the world. This was a highlight of the weekend.

We had problems getting to Shanghai, which is crazy as its only 1 hour away (by train), or slightly longer by car. Suzhou Train Station is a real sh*t hole... looks part like a war zone, part train station, part freak show... you get hassled lots and stared much much more than you do anywhere else in Suzhou. There's rubble, dirt and all kinds of other stuff all over the ground around the place and it's not clear whether they're rebuilding or destroying the place. Trying to find a taxi is harder than trying to explain why "The Office" is funny to a Chinese person - and that my friend, is pretty hard...

It took a while to even book tickets for the train. You can only do this 7 days in advance of the train leaving, and its advisable to prebook as Chinese trains can get packed. The problem is, the train system is convoluted and highly confusing - there are hard seat tickets, soft seat tickets, standing, and then there are fast trains, slow trains and the really fast trains. It's a bit of a guess as to which ticket you get, there doesn't seem to be any system to naming of trains, and no timetable available online or at the station. So, after being issued standing tickets we decided to arrive about 3 hours before our train left to see if we could exchange them for sitting ones. We couldn't - it was all booked. The military apparently decided to travel by trains all weekend. So we sat down on cold metal chairs and waited about 2 hours, and then found out that our train was delayed another hour... We had to be in Shanghai for an appointment, so then we had to negotiate with taxi drivers on the street to take us there. We paid 350 kuai (maybe about $60 Aust dollars) to then travel to Shanghai by cab... and half way there realised we'd both forgotten our passports (which are essential to stay anywhere here).

It's been frustrating. Frustrating that for a city that is an hour away, it can take all up about 4-5 hours to get there and a lot of money (about 450 kuai including all the taxi tickets to the train station in order to buy tickets that we then didn't use...). I think I'm going through my critical 3 month to 6 month period of culture shock (according to some theories)... This is the time more than any other when you're likely to completely lose it, because you're frustrated at how things work or don't work in your new environment...

Our weekend had some highs though - it was nice discovering upon the French Concession area of Shanghai - leafy European like streets with trendy restaurants and shops. We also saw some more interesting structures on the Pudong side of Shanghai (the new area).