After exiting the station, I found myself standing in a big, dirty, open area filled with hundreds of Chinese people sitting around waiting for something. Some might have been waiting for trains, others for friends, but most looked like they had been there a while and would be there for quite a while longer. The sky was smoggy and it was cold. There were no maps and very few signs, so it was hard to get my bearings at first. Overall, Shanghai station is not the most welcoming place for a new visitor.

I decided to go for a wander to stretch my legs. I had two things to do before I did anything else. First, I had to find an ATM because I had no money, and then I had to find a travel agency and make a hotel booking. One interesting thing I noticed while wandering round Hong Kong was that there were official China Travel Service (CTS) Offices everywhere. Anytime you needed travel related help you could be sure to find an office close by. I decided to take the more adventurous route and come to Shanghai without a hotel booking, figuring that there would be CTS offices in Shanghai as well. I was surprised to find that Shanghai was nothing like HK, and that there were no CTS offices anywhere. In fact, during my time in China I only saw a couple of travel agencies and they all looked pretty dodgey (and not particularly foreigner friendly).

So I set off in search of an ATM. Around the station square there were a number of shopping centres, but most of them were nothing more than concrete buildings filled with small stalls. None of them had a bank, so I wandered further from the station. As I was wandering I started to soak in the Shanghai atmosphere (and the polluted air). The first thing I noticed was that I could understand a lot more than I expected. Before coming to China I hadn't really studied any Chinese. In fact, the only words I knew were 'Hello', 'thank you', 'yes' and 'no'. However, I found that I could read a lot of Chinese because it was similar to the Japanese kanji characters that I see everyday. When Japan was designing their writing system they incorporated a lot of Chinese characters. Since then, some of the characters have been altered and some have been replaced. China has also simplified a lot of their characters making them different from the characters used in Japan. However, most of the characters were similar enough that I could understand the meaning. For example, the two characters for 'bank' were the same in Japanese and Chinese. This was helpful because it helped me find an ATM much faster than I could have if I hadn't been able to speak Japanese. I got some cash and headed back to the station to plan my next move.

I pulled out my travel guide, a small and not particularly informative book that I'd picked up in HK, and looked through it for information about travel agencies. Towards the back I found a passage mentioning the fact that there are very few agencies in mainland China (oops, perhaps I should have read that sooner...), but it also mentioned one that could be helpful. It was located at 1440 Beijing Road (in Shanghai, not Beijing). I checked my map and found that Beijing Road was a very long main road in central Shanghai. In fact, it was so long that it was split into West and East Beijing Rd (many of the roads in Shanghai are split into East/West, North/South and Central). Unfortunately, the guide didn't specify whether it was 1440 East or West. I decided to catch the subway to a station near the point that East meets West, so I went down to the subway station under Shanghai station. I found my destination on a subway map, which also showed the value of the ticket I had to buy, and went to the ticket booth.

As I'd just come from the ATM, I only had large denomination bills. In typical Chinese service industry style, the guy in the ticket booth looked annoyed that he had to stop his daydreaming to sell me a ticket, annoyed that he had to deal with someone who couldn't speak Chinese, and particularly annoyed that I was buying a 3 yuan (about 45c) ticket with a 100 yuan note (about A$15). This meant he would not only have to go through the process of checking the note to see if it was counterfeit, but then he would have to pull out his calculator and do some arithmetic to work out how much change I needed. Two important points here: first, every single time I payed with a 100 yuan note it was checked. They rub the note, put it up to the light, check the holographic strip and, in the more modern shops, put it through an electronic scanner. It wasn't just me that got checked, it was everyone. Counterfeiting is such a problem that the shop people take the checking very, very seriously. Although none of my notes were rejected, I did see other people get their notes rejected on a few different occasions. This is one of the reasons that I only got money from ATMs (after it had been checked by the bank), and not through money changers. Second point, just about every who handles money uses a calculator. In shops that deal with foreigners, it is helpful because it makes communication easier. You can use the calculator for bargaining and not have to worry about language problems. But in other shop, like convenience stores, the staff will use the calculator because they obviously have trouble doing simple arithmetic (like the ticket guy who had trouble working out 100-3=?). For me it was a little strange, but I guess it's normal for a country that has many people with limited education.

So, I got my ticket and headed off to the train.

I'm going to skip a little and come back to my feelings about the Shanghai underground later. It's a story that deserves a post of its own.

I arrived at the People's Square station which is right in the middle of Shanghai, and sat down to eat a sandwich and plan my next move. Looking around I could see lots of tall and uniquely designed buildings, big shopping centres, a park, a museum, a big art gallery, cars, taxis and people, people and more people. Shanghai is definitely a vibrant city, and People's Square is centre of all the commotion. One thing that Shanghai has going for it is that even though it's a big city with a big population, a lot of the attractions are either centrally located or are accessed easily from the subway. Sitting in People's Square, I was within 10 minutes walk of the popular Nanjing Road shopping area, numerous museums, galleries, restaurants and gardens and a countless number of other tourist attractions.




While I was enjoying my sandwich and studying the map, I was approached by a young woman and her two companions. "Hi, where are you from?", she asked in English. "Uh... Australia", I answered. Bad move. I shouldn't have answered. This girl was part of a group of people that I came to know as the 'English Pests'. As soon as they have started a conversation with you it's very hard to get rid of them. Although some of them are involved in scams, most of them simply want to practice English with a real English speaker. They hang out in public places waiting for foreigners to walk by, then they follow you and try to talk with you. Now, there's nothing wrong with this in principle, but for me it's a real pain. My job involves speaking English with foreigners. When I'm on holiday I want to be free to do my own thing. I don't want to have people following me around trying to talk to me. And I certainly don't want to be doing my job while I'm on holiday.

After working my way out of the conversation with the English Pests, I walked for about ten minutes to the spot where East meets West (Beijing Road, that is). For no particular reason I decided to start walking along East, but I soon discovered that the numbers were descending from 1000, which meant I was going the wrong way. When I crossed over to West, I discovered that the numbers were ascending, but from 1. This meant I had to walk from 1 to 1400. Great. But, as I mentioned before, I felt like a walk after spending the night on the train.

As I walked I got to see a less touristy part of Shanghai. I saw shops, restaurants, hotels and various other businesses that cater to locals only. I walked past one long shopping strip that had small shops selling all kinds of hardware, but the interesting thing was that most shops only specialised in one thing. There was the 'hammer' shop, the 'saw blade' shop, the 'tap washer' shop etc.

The long walk also gave me a chance to get used to traffic in Shanghai. The traffic there is really terrible, but not just because of the amount of cars. China is one of those countries where the only real rule is that the bigger vehicle has right of way. This means that buses and trucks have right over way over cars, which have right of way over motorbikes, which have right of way of bicycles. Right at the bottom is the pedestrian. Even if you have a green light and the cars have a red light, you have to be very careful because cars will regularly ignore lights and expect pedestrians to get out of the way. China is also one of those countries that has the rule which allows cars turning right (the equivalent of an Australian left turn) to turn on a red light. I'm sure the actual rule states that they should 'turn right only if it's safe', but generally they will just plow through a group of pedestrians and expect them to get out of the way.

After a while I reached the address in the guide book. It was a big, normal looking office building. I went up to the 7th floor, as was written in the book, but there were just offices everywhere with cubicles. There certainly wasn't anything that looked like a travel agency. After randomly poking my head into a bunch of offices someone took pity on me and directed me to the right one. There was a lady there who spoke good English and organised a hotel for me. It was a little more expensive than it would have been had I booked it on the internet, but ag the time I didn't mind. While we waited for the hotel confirmation the lady tried to give me some Chinese lessons. By the time we had got to the fourth phrase I had already forgotten the first two, and by the time I left the building I had forgotten them all.

The hotel was only about 2kms from the office so I decided to walk. I wasn't really sure what to expect. All I had been told was that it was a decent 3-star hotel. The rating 3-star could mean anything depending on what country you're in. In Japan, you wouldn't want to go much lower than 3-star. In other countries, 3-star could be luxurious.

As I walked to the hotel I passed the exhibition building and some big 5-star hotels and shopping centres. One thing that you can be sure of in Shanghai is that 5-star means 5-star. In fact, in China in general, the rich live very opulent lives. All the expensive brands of clothes, cars, wine etc. that you could expect to get in cities like Paris or New York, you can find in Shanghai. While I was walking past a big, designer shopping centre a Chinese guy started walking beside me. He pulled out a watch case and opened it up. "You want Rolex? Nice Rolex! Cheap, cheap!". As I was walking I couldn't help looking down at the watch (it was a pretty fake looking Rolex), and although I wasn't in the least bit interested this guy though that maybe he had found a sucker. "Rolex, only 200. 200 is real cheap!". I politely declined, but he continued to walk with me. "OK, I give discount. 120! Cheap, cheap!"........ "OK, I give you 2 Rolex, man and woman... only 120. Cheap!"...... "OK, 2 Rolex, only 80! So cheap!"...... (pulling out a new case)..... "How about pen? Mont Blanc pen! Very nice! Only 50! Cheap!".... "OK, I give you 2 Rolex and Mont Blanc pen, only 50! So cheap! I lose money.... my family no eat because so cheap...". Unbelievably, this guy followed me for ten minutes as we walked along a fairly quiet (for Shanghai) boulevard. I couldn't help but chuckle at his persistence and the ease with which his price dropped. Finally, he gave up and wandered off (probably because we arrived at a busier area which meant more chance of police). It wasn't until a few days later that I realised two fake Rolex watches and a fake Mont Blanc pen for a total of about A$7.50 would have made some interesting souvenirs for someone. Oh well.

Things began looking good as I found my hotel. Having seen a lot of Shanghai so far I had pretty low expectations of what a 3-star hotel would be, but it turned out to be great. I checked in (the staff were typically cold and unwelcoming) and went to my room. It was bigger than I expected, with a big queen size bed, a sitting area, a nice bathroom (with water that was only a little brown - don't drink the water in China!) and 80 channels of weird Chinese TV.

But the best thing about the hotel wasn't the rooms, it was the location. It was right above a subway station only 2 stops from the main interchange, People's Square. Across the road was an old temple, one of the few remaining historical buildings in Shanghai. There was also a massive shopping centre, lots of smaller shops and restaurants and a decent park. All this was within a few minutes walk of the hotel. Perfect for a foreign traveller.

I had a quick shower and rest and then set off for a wander. As I did in HK, I didn't take a camera or map, I just focused on getting to know the city. Also, as I did in HK, I walked way too far. I must have walked for about 6 hours straight and I saw pretty much all the main attractions in central Shanghai. Over the next few days I visited most of them again, so I won't talk about them now.

I came back to the hotel hungry, exhausted and with muscle pains in both my legs. All I could think about was getting something to eat and sitting down for a while, so I dropped in at a 'French style' Chinese bakery to get some food, and the convenience store next door to get some drinks and snacks. The convenience store was a 'Lawsons', which is a common Japanese store, but it didn't really have the variety that the Japanese Lawsons has. However, you can't complain about the price. Things in China are so cheap it's hard to get used to. I got a 600ml Gatorade, a 600ml Pepsi and a big chocolate bar. In Japan, that would cost about A$5. In an Australian 7-11, that would cost about A$10. At the footy, that would cost about A$25. In China, it cost me about $A1.50. Of course, I'm not so sure that the ingredients are the same. Some of the common western foods and drinks I had during my trip definitely had a unique 'Chinese' taste.

At around 9:30 I got back to my room a settled down for a feast (I went a little over the top at the bakery) and some Chinese TV. The food was pretty good, although I'm not so sure about the 'Hairy Bun' (that's what it was called):
It really did taste hairy. But in a good kind of way.

It was lights out by about 11:00 as I had a big day planned for tomorrow.