Shanghai and Hong Kong March 2015
Blog 4
Shanghai and Hong Kong March 2015
The far east is always place that I have wished to visit. This meant I was very happy when I was asked to visit Shanghai and Hong Kong for a few days each. This was made doubly pleasurable when I was informed that my wife could come with me. After a week of stock piling hand gel and anti bacterial wipes we were off on our Oriental adventure.
Shanghai was first and our driver met us at the airport with a phone call from my colleague in Shanghai to say he would pick us up to go for dinner that evening. The first thing we noticed was that we may have over done it on the hand gel and wipes. Shanghai was the cleanest and sparkliest place I had ever seen. I was suitably embarrassed about my pre-judgement. I must say that as a fussy eater I am always concerned when I go to a new country that I may not enjoy the food. On our first night our host said that he would be happy to order for us and promised not to put anything exotic infront of us. Which was a relief given that his assistant had taken great pleasure in telling us that the only thing with legs that the Chinese didn’t eat was a table!! The food was deliciously and my trust had been earned.
We then went to visit the finance district which has the second highest building in the world. The Shanghai world finance centre (and I thought SWFC was Sheffield Wednesday) has the highest hotel lobby in the world. We took the secret passage to the free coffee lounge, rather than the pay to enter viewing lounge, having local guides paid off. This is where our luck ran out, it was a foggy night, and the windows actually looked like they had put blinds on the outside of the window. As a plan B we went to visit an historic area of Shanghai called the Bund. I had mentioned to our host that my grandfather had been based in Shanghai as a soldier before the start of WW2, he was able to take me to where these barracks were which was a great experience.
The students in China were very friendly and pleased to see someone who had taken the time to come all the way to Shanghai to teach them. I enjoyed my time with them, and loved Shanghai, I will definitely be back here. It’s like New York, without the dirt, and the rude people, and the cold!!!
After three days in Shanghai we moved on to 5 days in Hong Kong. There was no driver, or host, or people to show us what to eat, or where. But this added to the adventure. We had more lovely food and went to visit the world famous star ferry at the harbour. Neither of us felt the urge to go on the ferry as even in port it looked like a pirate ship ride from a 1980s theme park!! We were very proud of ourselves for going into the non-English area and being able to order food and drinks in a restaurant with no problem. I also enjoyed being able to go to a tailors and have myself measured for two tailor made suits, very nice they were too!!
There was one harrowing experience when we were walking around the markets we found a lovely shop selling dogs, we love dogs and had a great time looking at all the different breeds on offer. It was as we were leaving the shop that we realised that these dogs weren’t being sold as pets, this was as restaurant district. It was a very quiet walk back to the hotel after that.
I really enjoyed the far east and this trip was especially rewarding as my wife was able to come and see these places with me. Both these places are on ‘the list’!!!!
