Mrs. H and I are off again to foreign parts. Which foreign parts, China parts. To be more precise, Shanghai. We hope to venture off on Sunday March 20th via China Eastern Airlines. This is one of the few remaining airlines that actually require you to confirm your booking three days before travel. This should ensure that they do not sell your seat to anyone else. They sound like a fun company as they have been known, on more that one occasion, to cancel a flight when there are not enough seats sold. Maybe I should say that we are going around mid to late March!
Visas – no worries..
I should first of all warn you that the normally reliable Lonely Planet guides are not always accurate. The Shanghai guide, for example says that the only place that one can get a China visa in Sydney is the China Trade Commission. This is not so as the grocers opposite the main gate also offers a visa service. We found this out when Judy and I went to apply for a visa on Feb. 14th. When we arrived at the gate we were greeted by a notice proclaiming that the commission was closed for the week as it was Chinese New Year. The owner of the grocers came over and grabbed us and took us into his shop. For Aus $10 he helps you fill in the application form, takes the form and your passport over to the commission (via the back-door nod, nod, wink, wink) 4 days later he gets your visa and keeps it until you come back to collect it. No queues or officials telling you you misread the form etc. etc. Good Eh?
Where to go and what to see…
For this information there is nothing to beat the advice of someone who has been there before. Ah! I thought I should ask my friend, Meng, who was in Shanghai for a number of months last year on business. I shall quote the conversation we had, nearly word for word.
Barry: “Where should we go in Shanghai?”
Meng: “I wouldn’t go to Shanghai, I would go to Beijing”
Barry: “Can you recommend any restaurants around the Bund (this is one of the main streets in Shanghai”
Meng: “There are no good restaurants in Shanghai”
Barry: “We have 10 days in Shanghai, what would recommend that we must see”
Meng: “10 days is far too long to stay in Shanghai”
I must say in Meng defense that he did make a lot of really good suggestions as to what we should do and where we should go but he did also say the above too!
This is a picture of the Bund (the street that runs alongside the rive on the far riverbank) which is one of the famous streets in Shanghai. The Pearl television tower is in the foreground.
We hope to travel from the airport by the Magnetic Levitation (MagLev) train. It is the fastest train in the world and reaches a top speed of 430 kph.