A day to ourselves today, just be back in time to get to the train! At 08:30 or so we’d packed our things and checked the bags into storage at the hotel, then walked off towards the old town. A long way to walk, but neither of us had much of an idea how to go about finding the right bus, or how to flag them down and pay. Breakfast again of mysterious tasty bread-things from a stall, then roughly south and east zigzagging along the streets and trying to stay in the shade — it was already hot in the direct sun.
The Bund Center
Past the “Bund Centre” and a mandatory photograph for the folks at bund.com.au — its a tall building with what appears to be a concrete crown, I may have taken a photograph of it .
Around the corner and suddenly we found ourselves in blocks of traditional-style buildings, some still under construction. In fact everything in China appears to be still under construction. One huge marketplace of little shops selling to tourists, endless streams of touts on the footpaths wanting me to buy “Watch, Prada bag, lady watch, shoe,” all rattled off as one long meaningless sentence. Crowds of people around the — bright green — ornamental lake, including a TV crew filming an interview with someone, I’ve no idea what its about but I’m in the background!
Then RMB30 to enter the Yu Yuan gardens where it was far more peaceful, although we still had to dodge 50-person Spanish and American bus-tour groups as we walked around in the maze of rooms and gardens and pavilions. A real shame there was no map as it seemed a lot larger inside than expected, all the small spaces making it easy to miss parts of the whole.
Finally we made our way back to the entrance, then back up to the Bund to start on the day’s chores — money and food for the train. A green-bean ice-cream as we crossed another new park and back in the direction of the river, confusion set in and we headed the wrong way along Ren Min Lu and found ourselves walking three-quarters of the way around an enormous building site then along a main road in blistering sun and finally to a corner of the park where we were within sight of where we’d sat to eat the ice-creams! Took the correct turn this time, then alongside the river on the Bund walk, again really hot as there’s hardly any shade up on the embankment.
The first bank we stepped into while hunting about to change money was enormous, one of the traditional old-fashioned style banks, all timber panelling and 19th century attitude. Completely overwhelming and no signs anywhere in either English or Chinese of where to do anything. The second was much easier, the guard took one look as we walked in the door and guided us upstairs to the foreign currency office.
Financial transactions completed, back across (under) the river via the “Pedestrian tunnel,” a bizarrely misnamed piece of tourist tat which is a very expensive little train that holds eight or so people, costs RMB30 one way (as against RMB1 for a return ticket on the ferry) and has a very tacky and very loud laser and light show its entire length. We had been warned by Julie, but we just had to see it for ourselves!
One good point is that the tunnel exit is right next to the Pearl tower and across the road from the enormous gold coloured supermarket-mall-department store that Dan had suggested was a good spot for provisions. Once inside it was a bit tricky finding the supermarket, luckily Jo remembered that it was in the basement!
It felt strange to be walking around in an enormous supermarket, everything marked in Chinese, but little different to any supermarket anywhere else in the world. All the same bright fluorescent lights, bright colours, endless brands and packaging.
We made our way back towards our hotel by the metro, then sheltered for half an hour or so in an air-conditioned foreign-language (i.e. English) bookshop. The thermometer outside happily telling us it was currently 35 °C.
Regrouped at the hotel then all piled into taxis for the trip to the station. An amazingly noisy and slow trip, I’m sure we could have walked it quicker, then down into the largest underground taxi rank I have ever seen.
Show our tickets at the turnstiles with guards outside the building — with so many people in China you can’t even get into the train station without a ticket, but even so it was packed once we got in. The waiting halls are amazing, enormous cavernous rooms just full of people.
A deafening and distorted PA system blasting out announcements, then down onto the platform for the long walk to carriage 17 of 20 or more — sorry Marko, no chance of taking any pictures of the engine for you!
We made ourselves at home in our compartment, six beds in two stacks of three, then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting around chatting and eating our way through assorted snacks, watching as the world went by. Noodles for dinner, the same as most of the other passengers, RMB5 from the lady with the food cart then fill them up with hot water from the urn at the end of the carriage.
Lights out and into bed at 10; I slept fitfully through the night, waking up occasionally as the train lurched and banged or stopped in odd locations.
