Shanghai and Suzhou

Using yet another wonderful metro system in Shanghai we reached the well hidden hostel with fair ease. The bar area was being renovated at the time so dorm beds there were quite cheap for how nice the place was.

Since Beijing we have been trying to get our visa's extended at the local PSB's, but they all took too long to process. As Shanghai had a lot of places to visit within the vicinity we had no choice but to get them extended here. The process took a week (longer than expected, probably because of the upcoming Chinese hoilidays), which meant we would venture even further out to Huang Shan before coming back to Shanghai to collect the passports in a weeks time. This 30 day extension would easily last us until Hong Kong, where we would need to re-apply in order to re-enter the mainland.

We took the metro towards the Bund area of Shanghai, where the famous cities skyline is best viewed from. The famous architectural landmarks in Shanghai consist of the Oriental Pearl Tower, that looks like some weird alien spaceship, the Shanghai financial building (494.5m), which is the tallest in Shanghai and at the moment stands at the 3rd highest building in the world, trailing only the Taipei 101, and the monstorous Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The Jinmao Tower, which has the highest hotel in the world within it, is also an iconic sight for the city. We decided to go the observation deck of this building to get a better view of the city. As we entered, there was a sign on the wall sporting the words 'no climbing', this was placed here after the human spider-man - Alain Robert climbed the outside of the Jinmao tower in 2001 unsuccesfully, but returned 6 years later to achieve his goal. He got jailed for five days in a Chinese prison and was expelled from China.

The Shanghai museum was free entry, so we thought we might as well have a gander. It was four stories high and had a ranged variety of exhibits on all types of chinese history. Including money, furniture, jade, brass and pottery sculptures. It was worth the visit.



On one of our days in Shanghai we met up with a friend of mine called Clara. She used to live in Leeds my 1st year of uni and we were supposed to be meeting in Hong Kong, where she lives, but her work in the olympic commitee sent her to Vancouver for the olympic games at that time. We also found Chris again, the American from Tai'an and Qufu. The four of us decided on a day trip over to Suzhou, a very pretty little town, with canals old bridges and pagodas dotted around. Although Clara speaks Cantonese her Mandarin was far better than any of ours, the ordering of tickets and food and asking for directions was made so much easier that day. I tried some pork dumplings for the first time in Suzhou, they were great.


Shanghai & Suzhou Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2858498011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/