Day 24 - Shanghai

Shanghai was boring. Partly due to the fact that I’ve been there in 2005, and also, like every other part of China, the city is depressing.

There’s like smog and fog everywhere. Vision to limited to a few kilometres, and if you attempt to look into the sky or the distance, you’ll see plain grayish white. It’s like you’re in this dirty snow globe, with the snow particles stuck to glass except that you’re not drowning the water but the smog that surrounds you.

Perhaps it’s the stark contrast between the expensive and rich European countries I came from and the developing and communist China I just landed at.

Because we’ve seen mostly everything in Shanghai back in 2005, we just decided to walk around, passing by some landmarks to see whether anything has changed.

The experience is slightly different because back in ‘05, it was winter and the temperatures were freezing. Freezing enough for us to walk a bit, find a mall and go inside it to warm up, and then walk outside a bit more before we find another building to enter and- yeah.

This time the temperatures were warm, slightly below Singapore’s and the humidity is irritating. Like Singapore.

We walked to Yuyuan Garden, which looks exactly the same as what we saw in ‘05. Developing country? Pfft.

And we proceed out to The Bund on foot, along the harbourfront which is famed for Shanghai;s beautiful skyline.

…or not so beautiful anymore.

Much of the peak of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was shrouded by low clouds, and the two tallest buildings of Shanghai (namely the Jinmao Tower and the newly opened International Financial Building) were completely invisible. You can see some shadow behind the building branded Aurora, yeah that’s where the two tallest towers are supposed to be.

And you may have also noticed the brown, muddy waters of the Huangpu river.

In contrast to the night skyline I took in ‘05.

Conclusion of the day: Shanghai looks better at night. ‘Cos everything ugly is hidden in darkness.

We walked past The Bund, which looks quite boring now that we’ve seen real European buildings more than enough. And we took The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, which was the most ridiculous S$9 ride I’ve ever taken.

And that’s pretty much Shanghai for you.

Day 25 - Suzhou

We knew we couldn’t survive two days in Shanghai, so we decided to take up a tour to nearby Suzhou for an entire day.

The tour is actually by the hotel, where we pay a fixed amount of money for a full-day trip to Suzhou or anywhere along the way. It’s like a private tour in a small van, and we can simply choose anywhere we like and the driver will take us there.

The choice was between Hangzhou and Suzhou, but my parents eventually decided on Suzhou because of distance, cost and prediction of bad weather in Hangzhou.

Suzhou is this city, about an hour away from Shanghai, that is famed for the Grand Canal cutting through the city. The way Suzhou is built around this canals has earned it the nickname of the ‘Venice of China’, if you even know how Venice looks like.

On the way, we stopped by this watertown on the outskirts of Shanghai. It’s Zhujiajiao, a town which looks a lot like Suzhou, except that you don’t have the factors of what makes a city, a city.

Then it was on to Suzhou. By then it was pretty like, about 3+ or 4+ in the afternoon.

We visited this temple + pagoda. Which was the most wasteful S$4 I’ve ever spent to see a temple. It was that pathetic.

There was a boat ride station next to the temple, where you’ll sit a boat which takes you through the major canals of the city. By the time we were out of the temple, it was closed.

And then we visited this garden.

And then we visited this temple + pagoda.

And then we visited this garden.

And then we visited this temple + pagoda.

And then we visited this temple + pagoda.

Because that’s Suzhou.

It’s just the canals and perhaps the boat rides that are nice, which were unfortunately closed by time we wanted to take it.

Highlight of the day: We saw a car on fire.

At night, we returned back to Shanghai and that concluded the last day of our holiday. What a terrible way to end it.

Day 26 - Home Sweet Home

What channels and what times are the Euro matches again?