April 14 2012, first full day in Shanghai

Our first full day in Shanghai, and today and tomorrow we have been left to our own devices. We won’t see a guide again until it’s time to go to the railway station on Monday for our train to Beijing. There’s a city tour bus stop right outside our hotel, so this morning we set off to see the sights from the top deck.

First stop was Pudong, which is the area across the river from our hotel where all the skyscrapers are. It’s not as spectacular as Central in Hong Kong, but as recently as 1994 it was farmland where much of the food for the residents of Shanghai was grown. Then it was designated as an open economic area, which triggered huge inward investment, and the skyscrapers sprouted like bamboo. Sadly, it’s still misty and hazy here, but the photos give a good idea. Just like Central in Hong Kong, the skyscrapers are the backdrop for a light show every evening, which we get a good view of from our windows.

How's this for air pollution?

The first stop in Pudong was at the Pearl of the Orient TV tower. You can take a lift up to any of the three observation platforms, but we could see from the bus that the queues were pretty big and in any case our bus tickets entitled us to go to a different, taller building nearby – the Jin Mao Tower in the World Financial Centre – where we travelled up to the 88^th floor observation deck for great 360 degree views of Shanghai. There were very few people up there, and we were looking down on the TV tower, so it was a good choice.

We then re-boarded the bus and went round to the old part of Shanghai, which is back on our side of the Huangpu river, south of the Bund. A large section of this area, around the Yu Gardens, is an obvious tourist trap, with shop after shop selling nothing but garish lanterns and other tourist tat, but we spotted an alleyway called Beiwangyima Alley that looked intriguing and decided to step into the unknown. It turned out to be a long, winding alley where ordinary people lived, but gave a much better impression of old Shanghai than the area we’d left behind. At one point, while we were in a deserted part of the alley, we heard a bell being rung somewhere behind us, and it was obviously getting closer. We waited a few moments before an old man riding a tricycle came slowly into view round a bend in the alley, ringing a weird little home-made bell which hung from the handlebar and looked like a miniature dustbin lid about five inches across. The back of the tricycle formed a trailer which was stacked up with cardboard and other stuff which we guessed could be recycled. He was a rag and bone man!

10RMB is £1, so this is Shanghai's pound shop!

A typically colourful tourist shop in the old town.

Our rag and bone man disppearing into the hutong

Everywhere you look in China you see arrays of power cables like these!

After eventually finding our way back to the bus-stop through the maze of streets, we returned to the hotel to freshen up. In the evening we turned right out of the Fairmont and walked up Nanjing road to the pedestrianised section, a shopping district that lights up amazingly after dark with a battery of neon signs. We found somewhere to have a drink before wandering across to the Westin Hotel, where Jen had sussed that there is an Italian restaurant. We’ve had enough of poor quality Chinese food for the time being. Hopefully things will improve in Beijing!