Shanghai

We took our few days in Shanghai at a slow pace, getting up late and staying in the hotel when Clare's tummy was less than fine.

On their last day, we went into town with Helen and Steve. A metro station is being built outside the Paradise Hotel, but currently we had to take a 2.5km taxi ride to the nearest metro station, followed by an 11-station trip into People's Square.

We wandered through the park there and ordered black tea, which turned up decidedly green. Then down through narrow old streets full of locals sitting outside their houses, getting on with their lives. I think Steve had said "Underwear is the city flag of Shanghai", and we definitely saw it flown very widely. We went on into the "Yu" (Yuyuan) Gardens, which Clare felt came a poor second to the Humble Administrator's Garden a few days ago.

Taking our leave, the two of us made our way to the south end of The Bund, the bank of the Huangpu river. We kept expecting to see somewhere to stop for drinks, but there wasn't anywhere, so eventually we went "inland" near the financial area and found a hotel where we took up residence in the bar for a couple of hours.

To round off our tour, we'd arranged to meet everyone else for dinner at a restaurant that had been recommended by a friend of one of the teachers, supposedly in the French Concession area. We set out at about seven o'clock, arrived dead on time well before anyone else, and waited in the bar. We found the T8 restaurant to be painfully pricey, with the cheapest glass of wine around £10. When everyone else arrived, they felt so too, and although the maitre di made us a very good group offer, we decided not to eat there. Someone jumped on the wi-fi and found an apology from their recommending friend saying they hadn't been able to afford the prices either.

Hence the idea of a final meal together ended in fiasco. We had one overpriced round together and then the teachers and the ladies headed west to a different place where they thought the French Concession might be instead. We returned to the hotel with Steve and Helen, who had an early flight, and ate a real Chinese meal together near the outer metro station.

The following day everybody caught their flights out but we had another two days. We took an easy morning, then headed into town and up the Oriental Pearl tower. It isn't the tallest observation deck in the city, but it is well positioned and has a glass floor right round the outside at an altitude of about 263 metres. We'd been on high glass floors before, for example 342m up the CN Tower in Toronto (me whilst working there in 2000), but this was scarier at first. I'd just stood on the glass for the first time when someone bounded on and I could feel it move under my feet!  Nevertheless, half an hour later I was doing laps whilst videoing the ground way below my feet.

Back on terra firma, we took a slow stroll down the river bank looking at where we'd been the day before and sitting enjoying the view as the day turned to dusk and the night. We took many photos of The Bund all lit up across the water, with and without the many brightly-lit pleasure boats and totally-unlit goods craft. We started out to the metro station to cross the river and enjoy the view from the other side, but things medical intervened (me) and then again the next day (Clare), so we didn't get back into town at all. Shame!

We consoled ourselves with the thought that we'd seen everything we needed to and had only really come up short by a few photos of bright lights.