We returned to Shanghai after spending the first two nights in Wuxi. Wuxi was amazing in its own ways, but I was looking forward more to spending our next few days in Shanghai.
We checked in at the Mercure Hotel which was located right smack in the middle of Shanghai, except that it was hard to tell if there was such a thing as middle of Shanghai since the whole city is more of a combination of a few sub-cities. I actually caught myself laughing when I found out that everything about the toilet was remote-controlled, from the positioning and adjustment of the toilet bowl to the temperature as well as the type of splashing and spraying of water that you’d prefer on your damn ass to finish your damn and stinky business with. I found it funny and yet admirable how a toilet could easily define and represent the modernization and technological advancement that China is now serving to the whole world.
After having our late breakfast at a Muslim restaurant, we wandered off towards where we believed the iconic The Bund would be. The fact that Shanghai really is a combination of modern and past is widely represented by the building architectures. Some of the buildings are so oriental, some are heavily European and most are of modern architectures especially the newer ones.
The excitement just grew when we arrived at The Bund which was probably the most iconic part of Shanghai. It is a wide esplanade that spans a few kilometres along the bank of Huangpu river. Right across the river is the famous chunk of Shangai that consists of towering buildings including the iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Shanghai Tower – which has recently been surpassed by the Merdeka 118 Tower in Kuala Lumpur as the 2nd tallest building in the world, although many are contending since the last 160m of the Merdeka 118 Tower is an unhabitable steel spire.
The esplanade was not as crowded as I had imagined it would be, may be because of the cold, and it turned out to be quite a nice walk. I was expecting a rain because the sky looked heavy right from the beginning but amazingly it never rained all throughout my stay in Shanghai. May be it was just the nature of weather in Shanghai. After sauntering up around for a bit, we turned westwards towards Nanjing Street, which was probably the busiest and most crowded street in Shanghai. It cuts across rows of shopping malls and we took all the time in the world to stop by whenever we felt like stopping.
One thing I immediately noticed when I started shopping for a bit was the fact that shopping in Shanghai was not cheap. Of course it all comes down to the current currency exchange rate which was and still is pretty bad on the Malaysian side for now. I am not really into shopping but I found myself struggling to find anything that I would at least willingly buy without thinking much about the worthiness (of it). In the end, I returned to Malaysia with much of my Chinese Yuan intact. In fact, I found myself exchanging them back to Malaysian ringgit upon returning to Kota Kinabalu. Urgh!
Food in Shanghai is massively abundant if you are not stricken by your religion. I am not really into Peking ducks, but the one that I had for late lunch at a small back-alley restaurant off Nanjing Street was superb. They were so soft, they felt like they melted in my mouth as I chewed on them in disbelief. The majority of Shanghai population is Buddhist, or probably Tao but there are restaurants that serve Halal food. You really have to know where to find them or you’ll starve.
Just as it is in most big cities, the people of Shanghai don’t really talk much to each other. They seem to be so disciplined though, may be because they have been ruled by the strict regime for so long. They’d open up if you came to their shops of course, and some of them have got quite a good sense of humour too. I remember one time when a key-chain selling lady jabbed her finger right into my belly when I tried to negotiate for a lower price. It was intended to be ticklish of course and I just played along. Heh.
The people of Shanghai may have long embraced the quick-paced modernization that’s been going on all over China and beyond for quite some time now but I had to cringe every time I saw somebody spitting so casually away in public. I wouldn’t judge or anything but somehow most of those who did it were ladies. I guess some old habits just don’t go away.
If there was something that I would really want to highlight about Shanghai, it would be a place which I later found out was called Temple of the City Gods which I bumped into while trying to find my way back to the Bund from the hotel during our last evening in Shanghai. What appeared to be a massive complex of temples was apparently an expansive market consisting of shops, restaurants, parks etc. Walking aimlessly along the streets that intermingled with each other amongst the temples, I felt like I was thrown to the filming set for a Jackie Chan’s movie, probably one of the sequels for the Rush Hours or something.
There was one section of the temple complex where there was a pool set in a patio which I later learned was called the Yuyuan garden. There was an array of lanterns that glowed so beautifully at night and made the whole place look so magical and otherworldly and yet so real. I let myself be immersed in the beauty of the Temple of the City Gods for a couple of hours or so before I decided to continue walking towards where I believed The Bund would be.
The cold of the night was beginning to tug at me so there were a few times when I had to stop to reconsider my mission but somehow I knew I’d continue every time until I found myself back on the wide and long esplanade that was The Bund again.
The night view was spectacular and I wish I could stay there longer but then the cold was beginning to dig deeper into me so I had to walk back to the hotel and spend the rest of my last evening in Shanghai curling myself away in the comfort of the bed back at the hotel room.
And it was time to go back to Malaysia the very next day before I knew it. My time was too brief in China, and I know I did not really see anything of it. And yet I was so fascinated by the very little fraction of China that I had seen and experienced through within the very limited time that I was there. The economy is definitely booming, and it really shows. The infrastructures are very well-maintained, and the landscaping is so well-crafted and well-tended. I probably did get a little bit of taste on the urban sides, but I know for sure that China offers some of the most amazing natural wonders in the world and I can’t wait to go to some of them on my next visit to this beautiful country.