May 27th in words

This was the same hotel that we stayed at the first night we arrived yet somehow it was different. The breakfast buffet that seemed so impressive was just breakfast. Maybe it’s the disappointment of the trip being over.

Our flight to Shanghai was at 9:50 and was only 2 hours. And then we were in China – people cutting in line, people trying to convince you that you need a taxi, no personal space…okay okay I’ll stop with the negative side.

The weather is a lot cooler than expected so after a quick change we headed for the Maglev (high speed train) to take us into to Shanghai proper where we were to meet one of Heidi’s grad students. We were impressed with ourselves for sorting out the metro and then we came out of the metro into downtown Shanghai. Wow was it busy….And rainy. We bought some umbrellas from a street peddler and made our way to the Bund. From the bund you get great views of the skyscrapers that Shanghai is famous  for. We were in Shanghai last in 2011 and at the time the tallest building was the Shanghai World Financial Centre at 500m (that’s 101 floors) and it was impressive. But now there is the Shanghai tower at 625m and it towers over the Financial Centre. We thought we would suggest going up the tower but it was in the clouds. So we walked along the Bund for a bit and over to the old city where Heidi’s grad student knew a great restaurant for  steamed buns.