SHANGHAI CITY BREAK (October 2007)
I don't think many people's first idea of a city break would be to go to China: Europe probably, one of the new Eastern European EU member states perhaps, somewhere within two or three hours flying time by a budget airline but not eleven and a half hours or so to a Communist state.
But why do what everyone else does? Be different! So we, and as many as four others (out of about 300 on the Airbus), set out with Archers Direct (a Cosmos subsidiary) on China Eastern airlines to seductive Shanghai.
Actually, we didn't; not at first. A typhoon hit Shanghai the day before we were to leave so our flight was delayed and we spent the first night in the Park Hotel, Heathrow, with dinner and breakfast all paid for. Full marks to China Eastern and the travel firms for arranging such excellent emergency accommodation at short notice. We joked that, if the flight were delayed further, we would opt to spend our short break at the Park Hotel instead - it was certainly comfortable enough.
But in the morning we left on a very nearly full flight which was reasonably civilised in economy class bearing in mind the very long flight time: leaving at ten am British Summer Time we arrived at our Shanghai hotel about five thirty am China time the next day. Due to jet lag and a slight disorientation, we wandered into the bar instead of the reception area but decided that a glass of Tsing Tao local beer would be good anyway: after all, it was just ten thirty in the evening back home!
The Bund Riverside Hotel was the slightly more up-market of the two that Archers offered on this trip. An elegant 18 story high building with extensive use of marble throughout, a pleasant top floor restaurant and a lobby level bar and cafe, a glass fronted exterior elevator to complement the interior lifts and (in our case, at least) a comfortable and quite spacious room (although the bed was very hard in, it seems, traditional Chinese taste), we were very pleased (and relieved) to get there.
The hotel staff had an adequate smattering of English for the basic stuff; the Business Centre staff had good English and proved very helpful when we had to check pick-up times for our return journey with the Beijing office of China International Travel Services.
Our first experience of wandering the streets of the town down to the Bund and the riverside was startling to say the least. We soon discovered that the Bund Riverside Hotel is not, in fact, situated on the historical Bund but ten minutes walk away; nor is it on the attractive Huangpu river but on Suzhou Creek, a muddy and unpicturesque waterway. Never mind, we were in China and that was what mattered.
Actually, the hotel is well situated; it's just that it doesn't appear to be on first sight as it is in an an area of plumbing and engineering shops which spill out over the pavement from their open shop fronts. Tools and bits and pieces of their stock lay around on the street, bicycles and motorbikes are parked on the pavement opposite the shops and someone is probably repairing his bike in the middle of the pavement encouraged by a couple of friends. The pavements are uneven, broken up by the continuous hubbub of demolition and construction all around (our room faced an area of almost completely razed old houses in a large area about to be redeveloped) and paving slabs replaced by iron sheets here and there. Just as we were becoming reasonably used to this, a motorbike roared up behind us on the pavement. Moving (jumping!) out of his way we narrowly missed a bike coming towards us. From a tiny entrance to some of the old style tenements behind the shops, a moped might splutter out across the pavement, never stopping or even slowing as it emerged. Truly, no-one on two wheels feels they are required to observe any rules of the road in Shanghai.
To be fair to bike riders, on the wider stretches of pavement cars and vans bump happily along as well. It seems as though, if one's destination is a building a half mile away and there is a convenient slope in the kerb, just drive up and along the pathway rather than on the more congested road.
Crossing roads requires even greater daring. A little green man lights up to show it is safe for pedestrians to cross but don't be fooled! All the traffic turning into the street will come along anyway and drive right at you. And the bike riders will ignore any and all red lights and just keep going. There are crossing patrol officers with their whistles and flags but they seem to be pretty much ignored if the drivers feel they can get away with it.
We were just amazed to see how the locals cross the road. They seem able to saunter casually out into the thick traffic which just parts around them. No wonder they are superstitious and believe in luck a lot......
Finally, if all that doesn't catch you out, then the washing lines strung across the pavements from buildings to power poles at head height certainly will (complete with washing drying in the fumes and pollution).
That being said, we had a full and instructive three days. We strolled the Bund, visited some of the historical buildings from the days of the foreign concessions, saw the modern People's Heroes monument, crossed the river by the Bund Tourist Tunnel (see below) and by ferry, went up the amazing Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Jin Mao Tower (one of the tallest in China at 88 floors and soon to be eclipsed by an even taller one right next door), cruised the Huangpu river up to the junction with the Yangzi, visited the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bazaar (old style but actually rebuilt - most of this area was destroyed over the years by uprisings against foreigners, the Japanese invasion, the fighting between the Nationalist Army and the Peoples Liberation Army, etc) and the amazing Nanjing Dong Lu shopping area.
Things we didn't like:
- Hawkers and hustlers abound. Ignoring the Chinese, they target Westerners and tout their 'Rolex' watches (two for £7.50!), roller skates (yeah, right, that's for us), 'silly putty' toy creatures, postcards, etc, etc. All in your face and all non-stop. Then there are those who want to chat, allegedly to practice their English but actually they want to 'guide' you to an art exhibition or similar where they can earn commission.
- Beggars, especially after dark but at all times in crowded tourist areas, will press up against you, wave some deformed part of their anatomy or stump or decaying flesh in your face, grab hold tightly and demand money over and over again.
- Pollution, unending construction and traffic chaos.
- Having to be very careful what and where we ate.
- General lack of European style toilets except in good hotels and maybe shopping malls (but just don't go near the public ones in the streets - just don't).
Things we DID like:
- The friendliness of ordinary people including the elderly lady who gave Kathie some old magazine pages to sit on in the Yu Yuan gardens, the child Kathie played ball with, the elderly couple delighted to make a £2 sale at their souvenir stall on the Bund.
- That it feels entirely safe as a foreigner to walk down dark streets.
- Seeing a vastly different way of life (sinks fitted in the street where people wash and clean their teeth in public, extraordinary shops open at all hours, etc) and just getting some sort of feel of China as a whole.
- Having lunch at the Grand Hyatt hotel on the 54th floor of the Jin Mao Tower, a touch of luxury, and relaxing in our hotel's bar/ cafe after a hard day's sight seeing.
- The peaceful three hour river cruise to the Yangzi, returning as daylight was fading and the lights were coming on.
- The experience of emerging from the darkest of tiny alleyways into the sudden opulence of that neon lit 'Las Vegas' style extravaganza that is Nanjing Road in the Nanjing Dong Lu shopping area.
- The weird aspects like the Bund Tourist Tunnel. Cable drawn cars each take half a dozen people under the Huangpu River to the Pudong area where the TV Tower, Jin Mao Tower, etc are built - the high tech side of the river. The cars go through an appropriately 'high tech' tunnel where lights flash, lasers twirl and projectors flash up images and a voice solemnly intones 'meteor shower', 'star swarm', 'heaven and hell', etc. Then inflatable figures pop up from the tracks and grin and wave insanely: a bit like 'Doctor Who' meets Disney's 'It's A Small World'. But, here's the Chinese twist: the passenger cars then run the figures over! (Actually knock them to one side, a bit like Shanghai traffic, I suppose).
We did the trip to see if we would like a longer two or three week expedition to the more far reaching sights of China. Our conclusion? Probably not. Three days in a cosmopolitan city was enough, we couldn't really face the rural areas.
Our flight out was excellent. Air Canada has the useful facility that one can check-in on line from home 24 hours before the flight so then we only had to drop off our bags and could arrive later than normal at Heathrow with no standing in an endless queue. Also, the flight was partly empty so everyone could spread out and it arrived an hour early at Montreal: top marks all round. Coming back the flight was full so less comfortable but that's to be expected. When we travelled from Montreal to Quebec City halfway through our stay the school holidays started and, forever after, there were hordes of school parties just everywhere and coaches from Canada and the US all trying to let down and pick-up groups in Quebec City's crowded streets.
It was a bit of a shock when we arrived in Montreal to find 90F heat already and we arrived at our hotel after two buses with no air conditioning feeling a bit frazzled. Later that first day, we went to one of the islands in the St Lawrence river and, feeling baked alive, had no choice (really) but to go the new Casino there to seek shade and cool refreshments. Actually, it made a decent place for a first night's dinner as well as we didn't yet have any clue to 'what' was 'where'.
Our hotel in Montreal, the Doubletree Plaza, was an entirely modern highrise and although it initially seemed a bit out of things being several kilometres north east of Vieux Montreal and the riverfront and facing the intersection of two wide urban highways, in fact it turned out to be very well placed being just round the corner from a Metro station and a block from Rue St Denis.
We found the Montreal Metro very easy to use and so handy, if stuffy and crowded, for getting quickly around. We rattled our way from the old city and Notre Dame and Place Jacques Cartier to the riverfront and the Science Museum (more school groups!!); to the underground city and the Anglican Cathedral that was jacked-up to build the shopping malls underneath; St Joseph's Oratory; the Canadian Museum of Montreal; the Botanical Gardens and the Olympic Stadium with the inclined tower (which we didn't go up).
Down at the riverfront we had been talking about taking a trip on the amphibus which drives around the old part and then takes to the water to cruise the St Lawrence river for an alternative view of the city, including what is left from Expo 67. By good chance, we wandered right up to the bus stop, a tour was about to leave and, although booked by a group of older French speakers, there were two seats left and they and the amphibus Captain were happy to have us join in and the young female, extremely knowledgeable, guide pleased to give us a thorough English commentary along with the French one for the group.
As for Rue St Denis, once seen, never forgotten......The guide books say it is the place for restaurants and that is true. Being just a block away, it was ideal to stroll there for dinner and we went to a different place every night including an Italian restaurant where the owner overwhelms guests with a quick-fire repartee in Italian, French and English more or less all at once and where the entire inside is decorated with fairy lights, Christmas figurines, a complete tree (not a Christmas one!), pictures of old Italians (or maybe old Sicilian mafia), etc. But good food and wine.
We thought it best to avoid Cafe Chaos (why chance it?) and Cafe Cannabis (do you eat it or smoke it?); were amused by the shop with the armless silver painted shop dummies on the roof (we didn't know why either) and the cafes where you could seemingly hire a hubble-bubble to smoke after dinner, laying on a sofa next to the pavement. The real show is the people. Rue St Denis is thronged 24/7 with students, aged hippies, punks (yes, spiky orange hair still lives on in Montreal and they wash car windscreens at the lights - not usually with much appreciation from the drivers judging from the shouts), sad people who seem to have taken one drug too many a while ago and now shuffle around, and curious tourists. (Don't ask which we were!)
Intersecting Rue St Denis was Rue St Catherine which is a long street as are so many in the city and which in one incarnation passes the respectable Anglican cathedral mentioned above and, in another, leads from St Denis to the Gay Village although it seemed more remarkable for police patting people down for drugs and moving on those unfortunate enough to have to sleep on the pavements.
We saw many people in motorised wheelchairs. We see that where we live in the UK, too, but they are elderly and simply have problems in walking. But these people in Montreal were quite young and seemed to be suffering from some awful birth defects. At certain parts of the streets, they would get together in the hot, sultry after-dark air, to meet and chat. We also saw one or two in Quebec City and wondered about some sort of medical disaster that may have happened in that part of Canada.....
We wandered these turbulent streets and the suddenly quiet ones, too, with only the odd figure slipping through the neon-lit gloom or maybe a small group of locals smoking and chatting outside a tenement or club, with no particular feelings of concern or threat - just interest in the side of a city that an organised tour wouldn't show.
Just off of Rue St Denis, quite by chance I found a large modern building, well air conditioned, that turned out to be a museum of media and cinematography and which had a free exhibition of vintage televisions, animation (including local French Canadian content), and impressions of Expo 67. It was open until 10.30 pm on a Saturday night and made an interesting offbeat place for us to visit for a couple of hours after dinner on our last night in Montreal.
Talking of food, we found a range of "Commensal" restaurants, new to us. Rather plain outside, they have serve yourself hot and cold buffets, all free trade, and charge by weight. They just weigh your plate at the till (well, I expect they deduct the weight of the plate itself!). Good because you can take only what you want to eat, maybe not a lot sometimes in that hot weather, and pay accordingly. Something of an earnest atmosphere and maybe a bit 'works canteen' but well patronised. We used them twice (lunch and dinner) in different parts of the city.
Our journey by VIA Rail to Quebec City was easy and smooth and it was handy to be able to check in our cases before departure like an airline and only see them again when the train arrived in Quebec station. Our hotel there, the Clarendon, was the oldest in Quebec City and so totally different to the previous one. Inside, the dining room was very French provincial in style and the waiters dressed in the traditional (?) black trousers and waistcoats and long white aprons of Parisian eateries. In fact, it was very difficult indeed to remember that we were in North America, and a British part of North America at that, rather than France.
The Hotel Clarendon is right in the heart of the old city opposite city hall and, as a much smaller city than Montreal, it was great that we could walk everywhere and, when worn out, retire to our hotel during the hottest part of the day and return to the streets later. We enjoyed another river cruise (this time to the Montmorency Falls); a tour of the Chateau Frontenac hotel (if you can't afford to stay you can at least gawp); the Citadel; museums (yes, we were all museum-ed out at the end); strolled the cobbled streets; rode the funicular up and down, up and down, up and down (oh, sorry!) to the lower part of the city; sat in parks; and - oh yes- attended a witchcraft trial in 1661 in a church.
It was a full three days.
We were made very welcome by French and English speaking Canadians alike and had a thoroughly interesting time. It would be good to return but maybe for the train trip from Toronto to Vancouver - now that would be something. We'll keep saving.
We did find Canada quite expensive. The Canadian dollar is strong, more or less on a par with the US dollar but things in Canada are still dearer than the US before tax and two taxes, federal and provincial, add a further 14% at the till. Books and magazines are wildly expensive: a computer magazine which is about £3.95 here is CAN $ 16.99 (£8.50) PLUS 14%. A quite thin paperback book I bought at Montreal airport was over £12 when converted. Of course, we have 17.5% VAT but some items are zero rated (including books and food, I think) but in Canada everything seems to attract the tax.
Also, I am afraid the weather would be a killer. People we met said "oh this isn't hot, in August it's 40C and in winter, minus 30C". Ouch!
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