I was on the train the other night, and we ended up talking about bacon. Yes, you can get bacon in Shanghai, but it’s smoked, and not my favourite. Anyway, by the time I got out of the metro I NEEDED to have bacon for tea. I dropped into the local supermarket and bought some bacon and some eggs. The eggs – well, I bought GREEN EGGS, but to be honest, they are just ordinary eggs – sorry for all you Dr Seuss fans out there!!
The rains have started here. I was feeling right at home – the rain started on Tuesday night and continued all day Wednesday, and all day Thursday. It was almost like being back in Scotland, except that it was warm (25 degrees), and there was no wind!! Luckily it didn’t get very warm, so the humidity wasn’t a problem.
One of my Chinese colleagues took me out to be a tourist last Sunday. We went to visit Xi Tang. This is a pretty village near Shanghai became famous a few years ago because they filmed part of Mission Impossible 3 there. It’s just a small place, with traditional Ming and Qing dynasty houses sitting on canals. I’d asked for the authentic Chinese experience, so we used normal transport to get there. There are tourist buses which go there from Shanghai, but where’s the challenge in that?? We met up at Shanghai South Railway station – what an amazing place. I don’t think I’ve seen a train station which is nearly so modern. It’s circular, and all the outside – including the domed roof is made of glass. It’s really big and airy. It just opened last year, and is very impressive. Considering hat it’s a train station in one of the biggest cities in the world, it wasn’t at all crowded. Yes there were lots of people there, but there was plenty of room for everybody. We got on our train and found our reserved seats, and at 10 o’clock we left Shanghai. Well, that’s not strictly true, we lest the station. It took at least another 20 minutes to leave Shanghai. The train trip itself was only 40 minutes long (and cost 60p!!). After
a short walk, we got on a bus which dropped us off at Xi Tang about 15 minutes later (cost = 20p). We then got in a bicycle rickshaw and were taken to a restaurant for lunch. I’m not a big fan of rickshaws, following our escapades in Beijing, but this one was OK. After lunch we went wandering around Xi Tang – a nice place, with very few non-Chinese tourists. Of course, I took a few photos!!!
After a couple of hours, we took the bus back to where we’d got off the train, where we’d planned to catch the bus back to Shanghai. Slight problem – the bus tickets were nearly sold out, so we had a couple of hours to kill before we could get a seat. Not a big problem, as after a little wander about we found somewhere to stop for an ice cream. The bus took an hour to get back to Shanghai -fighting through the traffic, but it was very comfy, and three times the price of the train!!! I’d a great day out – and spend an extravagant sum of just over 5 pounds!!
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