So... off the train... the not entirely or remotely warm and inviting face of mother China... into the station and through Chinese immigration, again... waiting for a tap on the shoulder and being led away into windowless rooms... but no... through without drama and only a few suspicious looks, and out into the crisp (I am not going to say clean) air of Shanghai. A couple of animated phonecalls later debating which was the left side of the station and looking through crowds of small people with black hair for a small person with black hair and a familiar face... and then there she was, our Shanghai saviour, our beacon of light and comfort in a sea of the unknown... my friend's ex Auckland girlfriend and Shanghai native... except despite growing up there, she really knew Mission Bay better than Shanghai, and we were still pretty much none the wiser.
We found a Chinese version of... well, a Chinese fast food chain that was based on something western, decor a la KFC... across the inevitable square that is in front of every train station in China, and we ate the Chinese version of fast food... I wasn't overly craving anything so ate a relatively bland sounding beef noodle soup... to find the only beef was in fact chunks of beef fat, floating lazily in an oily broth... we chatted with our little hostess and she listened eagerly as we caught her up with the happenings in her beloved Auckland, and looked out at the grubby 1980's era pedestrian mall, complete with masses of somewhat derelict rural looking locals in ragged clothes, milling around selling fruits and generally looking... derelict... then made our way to the road to find a cab, talking our way past several clutching beggars. As we were to find out frequently, having a Chinese-speaking, and in fact Shanghaiese-speaking (because it is a whole other dialect) hostess/guide was a blessing and a curse, as she could tell people to leave us alone, but they also knew we "must" have bags of money, and could demand she tell us what they wanted...
Finding a cab that would take us was the next mission... in China most things seem to be a mission, but taxis are a whole league of their own... finding one... then finding one that will actually take you... then figuring out where we are going... then surviving the ride... but that is other stories... and then off in the (rather unique) cab. It's hard to describe China from what I have seen. The midwinter sky is stark and the sun still seems harsh despite having no heat. The city just looks faded, the odd newish corporate tower mixed with buildings of all ages, all dusty, all looking washed out.. passing a Range Rover dealership, white and pristine inside with shiny vehicles behind smeared, filthy windows, streaks of dirt and congealed smog running down over the brickwork... The hotel when we got there was 10 floors of unremarkable brick outside but pretty much your standard western business hotel within. The staff were, as we had come to expect, unfriendly and unhelpful, but got us checked in, and we filled in our government "declarations of temporary residence" forms, got to the room and threw our bags down. There was considerable train-lag evident and with Nick once again complaining of no sleep the night before due to my snoring, we decided it was time for a nap (tragically for Nick, there was no door between the rooms in our suite, and within about ten minutes he was suffering serious dejavous).
We emerged from our cocoons later in the afternoon and wandered out and around, ending up not far away on The Bund, a stretch of old and rather grand grey colonial buildings and hotels on the corner of the river, built by the various German and French and English and whatever other empires tried to make China their own in the last couple of hundred years. From a large raised promenade stretching along the wide brown river we looked across to the towering office blocks and rather camp 70's sci-fi TV tower (think 'Thunderbirds') of the corporate downtown... all the while constantly accosted by hawkers, cripples, beggars, street children etc... etc... etc... who fill any such unpoliced touristy type areas. It's hard to put into perspective, suffice to say it is not how interesting the place is, but the level of harassment you can tolerate, which dictates how long you can stay in some public areas in China.
The evening was blessedly unremarkable, a taxi ride to one of the small western oasises (oasees? oasi?) that exist in certain crouched and sheltered parts of the city, with a pedestrian strip of pubs and overpriced souvenir shops and a smattering of expats, where we sat and ate not-bad pizza at our little Shanghai friend's favourite pizza place (due to it being passably western) before a bit more walking on almost deserted Shanghai streets, and home to blissful (for me, I never hear myself snore.. but I gave Nick spare earplugs) sleep...
to be continued... as always
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