Shangahi hi-lights

 We started and ended the day by the river.

First up, we took a promonade along the Bund where the architecture is very European (also as seen in the opening credits of the excellent Chinese/Australian production, Miss S)

Then a brief trip to the Shanghai Museum which makes extensive use of multi-media and concentrates on modern history - 19th and 20th century with just one floor of early history. We probably should have skipped the optional 1/2 day tour we did in the afternoon and just taken our own time to look at the French and Old Chinese areas.

 

Lunch in the French Quarter was our first non-Chinese meal since leaving Sydney! Of course Matt found a brewery.

Second lunch was in Chinatown. We tried out the wibbly-wobbly soup dumplings. They are huge - and you get a straw for the soup, no trying to balance it on a spoon! Although it would have to be a very large spoon to manage it. This one was hairy crab and sweet corn. Delicious!

The next part of the tour was so boring no photos - dumped in a high end shopping street to window shop/kill time. I'm sure some people found the shopping opportunites great but the normal shops (things like uniglo etc) were dearer than at home and I'm not really in the right pay grade for Tiffany or Cartier.

Another optional tour in the evening and this one was one not to be missed, an evening river cruise to see the city lights. My tip is to go straight upstairs to the top level and pay the 50 yuan each for seating! You get a snack (water, chips, and biscuits) as well as a much better, much less crowded view. The lights were really astonishing.

It was still quite light when we borded. China has one time zone - as a result dawn is around 4am in Shanghai at this time of year! 

The views were harder to snap when you didn't pay for preferential treatment.

Although we had the opportunity prior to the cruise to eat in a restaurant where you paid according to the weight of the food you selected from the buffet we were still full of our lunches then - so post boat ride, a late night raid on the convenience store netted us a microwave meal. Not a michelin star special but also not unpleasant. Amazing range - they had a large selection from simple pot noodles/just add boiling water, sambos (very popular), and TV dinners. They also a variety of snackfoods and have beer and spirits, just no tonic water! We went for the pork and chicken which also came with rice.  Not sure where the green vegies were that were in the picture because they weren't in the box! Oh well, potato chips are vegetables too amIright?