Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Shanghai - Day 3


By day 3 in Shanghai we realized that we had seen all the main sights in the city already. The only other sights we wanted to check out were the People's Square and Fuxing park. Once we got to the park the weather became really bad with the rain coming down hard at moments and then a steady drizzle. The park was nice and would have been much nicer had there not been such a horrible downpour. We decided to walk to the French Concession after the park. This area is supposed to have several French style buildings and cafes. We were struggling to find it exactly, because it is not listed on maps as a specific destination. But once I read the description in the guide book I found out that we were in fact already in the French Concession and had been for quite some time. The buildings did look nice and the streets were tree lined and all but it was nothing spectacular.
After the Concession we headed back towards our hostel with a walk through of People's Square. We saw the National Museum as well as the Municipal Government Headquarters. We had a rather long walk to Fuxing park and back to our hostel but it was not too bad. The rain had stopped at this point. We were just eager to get out of Shanghai. We saw all the main sights in the first two days really.

Before we headed to the train station we had some Carl's Jr. We were so surprised to see the restaurant in China. It was delicious. We eventually made our way to the train station without a hitch. It took us awhile to find our platform though. We had ordered our train tickets online and they were delivered to our hostel without any problems. Once we set our stuff down went back to the Bund area along the river. We found a local microbrewery. I had seen them advertised on our map. We walked in and no one was there. I guess they don't get too much of a lunch crowd. The beer was really good. It had been seven months since we had a micro-brew. The smell in the pub was so good. The aroma of hops was enchanting.

Once we found our platform, Latanya was starting to hyperventilate, do to the massive amount of people. They finally opened the gates to board and we headed to our car. Once we got on the train it seemed to be rather clean and relatively nice. There were not any private compartments. Just cabins divided by two walls. In each open faced cabins that had two sets of bunks three bunks high. Since we were the last to arrive in our cabin, we were dealt with the top two bunks. There was a nice family of four below us. We climbed to the top and tried to get comfortable. With the exception of little head room and the ceiling feeling as if it were right on top of us the space was not too bad. We had room to put our bags on the bunk with us and still had enough leg room. I could tell Latanya was trying to come to grips with the situation.

She was a trooper for sure. This was not her idea of traveling. But I told her it was just for one night only and that we would be flying back to Shanghai. She took a deep breathe and began to relax a little. Once the train got started we new there was no turning back. I was so excited, we were going to see the Terracotta Warriors!!!

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