Intensive Shanghai visit

Our train journey to Shanghai went very smoothly indeed. So far, I've been rather impressed with public transport in China. The metro systems we'd used (in Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou) all functioned pretty much flawlessly (even if the ever-present security checks are a bit annoying), and the bus/train services function very well indeed. Some so called developed countries could learn from these guys...

Anyway, once in Shanghai, we headed off to the apartment block, where we were supposed to meet up with Isabelle. And she did indeed arrive pretty quickly, and once we'd gotten settled in, we decided to hit the road, to find a bit of food to fill our growling stomachs. 

We walked across to the French concession (which is supposed to be a good area to grab some food) - and we ended up in a place serving hot pot. Unfortunately, they only had a menu in Chinese, so we ended up going for the "let's just tick off 10 things randomly off the menu and hope for the best" strategy. It turned out to be an only partial success, at least as far as Nick and Isabelle were concerned, as most of the stuff they brought strongly resembled brain tissue and strange organs. Be as it may, I rather enjoyed it!

The food bit done, we headed over to a nice pub, where we had a few beers, catching up on the latest news (a lot of it, unfortunately, about the American elections). Anyway, great to have Isabelle onboard for our travels!

The next day, we got up bright 'n early, eager to explore Shanghai. We started off by checking out Jing'An temple, as it was located just down the road from the apartment we were staying at. It's a pretty calm place to escape the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. Actually, it's a very busy temple, but most of the visitors are actually real worshippers rather than selfie-snapping tourists. An impressive place - and the place does have an illustrious history going back to the 12th century, too!

After a quick coffee at a funny animal themed place (well, I actually had what is becoming my favourite drink - a Chai Latte), we headed off to yet another temple - this one called the Jade Buddha temple. It's the most famous temple in Shanghai - its fame comes from the two jade buddha statues that have given the temple its name. The temple is a really beautiful place to visit - but the two famous jade statues (one a sitting Buddha, and the other one a reclining Buddha) are actually quite small, and far away from the viewing position, that it was a bit hard to appreciate them properly.

Enough tourist visits for a bit - time for lunch. Since we were in Shanghai, we decided to try out Xiaolongbao - steamed dumplings, one of Shanghai's signature dishes. We headed off to Shanghai's Old Town (Old Time may be old but it's been transformed into a bit of a tourist ghetto - full of selfie-obsessed tourists!), and had our steamed dumplings at one of Shanghai's most famous places restaurants.

Well, at least that's what one can assume, judging from the portraits of celebrities (like Bill and Hillary Clinton) hanging on the walls. The Xiaolongbao were excellent, as expected - but perhaps not quite as sublime as in my favourite Xiaolongbao restaurant chain - Din Tai Fun.

We continued our exploration of Shanghai with a visit to the nearby Yuyuan garden - one of the most famous Chinese gardens in all of China, dating back to the 16th century. The Yuyuan garden is quite a maze, full of pavilions, labyrinths, small ponds, walkways and the like, so it feels like a bigger place than it actually is. I really enjoyed the visit (in spite of the ever-present tourist hordes), but I maintain my preference of Japanese gardens over Chinese ones...

We continued our rather intensive exploration of Shanghai by speeding back to the French Concession - which is supposed to be one of the nicest parts of Beijing. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to walk around, so we just settled on a nice panoramic drink from the top floor of a fancy hotel. A well-deserved drink, I might add, after all that running about!

Of course, no visit of Shanghai is complete without seeing the Bund, so that's where we headed next (we were on a tight schedule here, since we had a night train to catch to Xi'An later on!). The Bund was busy and impressive as ever - this time the evening view was even better than during my previous visit - as a full moon complemented the panorama!

We decided to dine nearby, in a place called Lost Heaven. A bit of a pretentious name, perhaps, but the food was certainly the best we'd had so far in China! The place specializes in Yunnan cuisine - and we all agreed on the fact that the food was great!

And that was it for our short yet intensive visit of Shanghai, as it was time for us to speed down to the train station, from where we were catching the night train to Xi'an. All in all, a very interesting place - one that certainly merits more than just 2 days to fully appreciate. But, China is a big place, so no time to stay any longer!