Iconic Shanghai Skyline
- Oct 26, 2019
- 3 min read
The view that I had been waiting for was everything and more and so worth the walk from the hotel even if my bed was calling me.
We arrived in Shanghai after a ten and a half hour flight, the flight was uneventful, with a bit of turbulence and the air con not working very well so it was a little too hot on the plane. The food was not the greatest (and I usually like airplane food) but it was edible and I've seen worse. We arrived safely and then the walking began. If you kept up to date with me in South Korea you would know that sore knees and ankles don't stop me from walking and day one was no exception ......and that was just getting out of the airport.
If you've ever been to Shanghai Pudong Airport and been out at the satellite station you know how much walking is involved even with a train between that and the main terminal. Getting through customs was easy, I was well planned, I knew that in order to get the 24/144hr transit visa that you needed to have the details of accommodation and onward flight prepared at the gate. There were a couple of travellers who didn't have the correct information who were denied entry and they were not happy.
Once we cleared customs we took our bags to the luggage storage which was a great idea as I would have hated to negotiate stairs with the bigger bag as we had to at one of the stops. It is costing Y140 ($29Aus )for two bags for two nights and it was well worth every penny.
We took the Maglev (which is the magnetic levitation train which was going at 302kms/hr, from the airport to Longyang Station where you change for the metro. We bought a return ticket with a one day metro pass for Y85 ($17Aus) which should cover most of our travel within Shanghai. For the Shirley's Tours people😜 think Seoul metrol without the polite waiting to get on and off the train but everything else was the pretty much the same, which means fast service, signs and announcements is both Mandarin and English, and lots and lots of walking at transfer stations. We stayed at Shanghai Chunshengjiang Hotel just off East Nanjing Rd. It is a basic hotel with everything you need, shower, toilet, free wi-fi and TV to watch Chinese dramas but the best thing
about it was the location which is just off' the shopping street' in Shanghai that everyone knows and most of the 5.5km trip is a pedestrian walkway and decided to go for a quick walk because even though we were knackered we couldn't not !!! We were only going for a short walk just to get some 'fresh air' and decided we would go as far as one of the buildings which had a green roof just because it looked impressive and that green roof belonged to the Peace Hotel which was on the Bund and exactly where I wanted to explore for the view across the river. The Bund was the 'foreign quarter' from the 1860s to 1930s so a lot of the buildings reflect the European residents of the era.
But what we came for was the iconic view that everyone wants to see of the ultra modern buildings reflected at night in the Huangpu River and we weren't disappointed, it was spectacular and well worth the walk.
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