A day on the Bund

The next stage of my trip took me to mainland China - unfortunately without Mathilde, as she had headed back to France from Seoul. The plan was to meet up with my good mate Nick in Shanghai, and travel for a bit with him.

My flight arrived in Shanghai in the early afternoon. Being a bit of a tech geek and engineer, I decided to take the maglev train into town. The Shanghai maglev is the fastest train in commercial operation, having set the world record at 511 kilometres/hour. No denying, it's a smooth and fast ride, one that allows very quick transit from the airport to downtown Shanghai!

My hotel was located in the Bund, which is probably the most famous district in Shanghai. It's a historic area, with plenty of historic buildings (mostly banks and other financial buildings) lining up the Huangpu river. This was where Shanghai's development into one of the main financial centres of Asia started at the beginning of the 20th century.

My hotel was a modern, if charmless affair, quite conveniently located for exploring the Bund. I started by walking down the main shopping street of Shangai, East Nanjing road. It's a very busy street indeed, with shops lining up the pedestrian thoroughfare, with street artists plying their trade for the crowds. And let's not forget the young ladies offering "exotic massage" about each 50 meters or so...

As Nick was seemingly getting delayed at the airport, I decided to go and check out the Bund, while waiting for him. The view from the Bund towards the financial district is pretty amazing, especially as it gets dark, and the impressive skyscrapers get lit up, one more spectacular than the next one. What was also pretty impressive was the huge crowds checking out the spectacle... Welcome to China...

The historic buildings on the Bund look pretty cool as well, lit up. I gaped at two of the more impressive buildings, including the HSBC bank (dating back to 1923, and no longer operated by HSBC) and the Custom's house (from 1927, with its clock and bell being replicas of Big Ben, made in England).

After a bit of hassle, I was eventually able to meet up with Nick. After grabbing a quick dinner (some very reasonably priced Shanghai-style dumplings), we decided to head and check out the financial district, known as Pudong, located just across the river from the Bund. It's certainly a very impressive area, with modern architecture every bit as impressive as one can find in say Singapore or Tokyo.

We figured the best way to get in a nice view would be to have a drink in one of those big buildings - so we decided to head for the Shanghai World Financial Centre - which houses a Grand Hyatt Hotel with a fancy bar on one of the top floors. The building measures a rather impressive 492 meters, making it the 8th tallest building in the world currently. The view from the bar was, needless to say, very impressive indeed, and the beer was actually cheaper than expected!

After a couple of drinks, we headed back to our respective hotels, determined to explore more of Shanghai the next morning, before carrying on to Hangzhou. In the end, it wasn't to be, as the famous Shanghai smog was well and truly present in the morning, limiting visibility to about 10 meters maximum. (just have a look at this picture from the Bund, and contrast it with pictures I took the day before...).

So, after a short but intensive stay in Shanghai, we jumped on the high-speed train to Hangzhou.