Ahmad: We arrived into Shanghai in the evening and headed straight to the Captain Hostel, I had some really fond memories of the Captain Hostel (I had lived here previously) and was looking forward to being back. On arrival we checked in and got up to our respective dorms (no mixed dorm’s at the captain), we got ourselves sorted then headed up to the rooftop bar, the hostel itself hadn’t had a refurb in quite some time (I imagine since I was in china 7 years ago) and I was bitterly disappointed to see how far it had fallen. The people in the hostel itself were relatively nice, but not very outgoing, and the bar was very expensive. We had only paid for two nights so we decided to move to the Rock and Wood Hostel as soon as possible (one of the best hostels we’ve stayed at along our travels).
During the day we went shopping in the ‘Super Brand Mall’ (Laura needed some new T-shirts) and went for a walk in the rain, visibility was limited but the bund is absolutely stunning at night, we ate at a little eatery and turned in early. It turns out we had arrived in the ‘Plum rains’ and it pretty much rained the entire time we were in Shanghai.
We moved to the Rock and Wood hostel early the next day and went shopping again in a local mall (near Zhongshan Park metro). In the evening we met up with Anda (one of Laura’s friends) and had a pretty late night.
We had spotted a Toni & Guy in the Super Brand Mall and we both got our hair cut, the haircut (for the grand price of £18 each consisted of a wash (2 washes for me), dry, head massage (quite painful actually) and a cut. We didn’t want to risk getting a hair cut like a panda so we didn’t opt for a local hair salon. After our hair cuts (I felt like a girl at this point) we went back to the hostel and met up with another old friend from the UK (Stu and his fiancé Robyn). Stu came to meet us at the closest metro station (only two stops) and walked us back to his apartment (again it was really nice, the cost of living out in China is so cheap that we are seriously considering a move). We ate at an Uigur restaurant just in the next building, after a cracking meal we went back to Stu’s pad and he very kindly invited us to stay in the second bedroom.
The following day we checked out of the Rock & Wood hostel and moved our stuff to Stu’s. Stu worked in the mornings and afternoons so we had a wander to the Shanghai museum. A lot of the exhibition halls were closed but it was free and an entertaining way of spending the afternoon. We met Stu for some half price cocktails in the middle of people’s park, and then went for some dinner in another local eatery in the next building along.
On waking we had a day of relaxation, and watched bootleg DVD’s, Stu’s best mate was also living in Shanghai (called Shrew) so we all went over to Shrew’s and had some take away pizza, we also met Shrew’s cat (called Leonard) who is something of a mean cat (Laura: He jumped on my neck with his claws – he was a little shit), he likes to bite, scratch and generally be mischievous.
For the next few days we generally chilled out in Shanghai (mainly in Stu’s flat), we went out for a really nice curry, had a great night out with half price cocktails (that Robyn refused to let me pay for!) and watched the entire series of Generation Kill (Think band of brothers in Iraq War 2, Pat /Mark – You’ll love it).
The only other bit of sightseeing we did was the Jade Buddha temple. I used to go this little temple on a regular basis, Seven years ago it wasn’t that touristy and it had a fantastic teahouse attached. On visiting it this time round it was full of curio stalls and the teahouse had been turned into a restaurant. It’s a great paradigm for the rest of Shanghai, in terms of the pace of change here, as well as level of cosmopolitanism.
We both loved Shanghai; it was fantastic to catch-up with Stu, meet Robyn and see how Shanghai had changed over the past 7 years (when I was here the area to go out was Mao Ming South Road, its changed area 3 times in 7 years, and now it’s somewhere called shelter). Whenever asked I always tell people that Shanghai is my favourite city and it still is, I’ll definitely be looking for contracts (after travelling) in Shanghai and East Asia (Laura – let’s move to Shangers!).