So other than the western food for sale at the hostel bar (which you can get anywhere in Shanghai) and the English movies shown nightly (glad I never paid for Incredible Hulk or Bourne Ultimatum) this hostel has it's problems. The first problem we noticed was the noise. For some reason everyone here feels the need to slam the doors. I am not sure if it is the building acoustics or just angry people but starting at 7:30 in the morning doors were slamming shut every few minutes. It made sleeping on the rock hard bed even more difficult. Eventually we got up to try out the free breakfast. Free breakfast consisted of plain toast, some Corn Flakes and Orange Drink, which we think was some sort of watered down Sunny Delight. We were less than pleased. I ate as much as I could stomach before we got up and go ready for the day.
Shanghai is not real big on tourist attractions. Being the financial capital of China the cities biggest draw is probably the skyline and the oddly shaped Oriental Pearl Tower. Lesser known sites consist of the Bund, a street of European style buildings from the days of Shanghai's concession days and Nanjing road, a pedestrian walkway of shopping. We road the subway down to the start of Nanjing street and started walking. It quickly dawned on us that Shanghai is hotter than hell with humidity drenching your body the second you step outside. We had to make a few departures from the road to the air conditioned showroom of some department store or another. We pretended to shop around letting our bodies soak in the cool air long enough to dry our backs. Then it was back to the street and the constant hassling of street vendors trying to sell us watches, sunglasses, dvds and shirts. Eventually we made it down to the river front which is where the Bund runs.
As I said before the Bund is really just a collection of European style buildings. Not a whole lot to see or do other than walk along the river walk. With the heat still beating us down we bought 2 tickets for the Bund Tourist Tunnel. Everything I had read said the tunnel was a huge tourist trap, great for kids but pretty crappy otherwise. But we were hot, it was cool, so we gladly paid the $5 to get in. The tunnel itself is pretty odd. I am assuming it was an old subway line that ran under the river to Pudong, the new part of the city. At one point they must have retired it and some entrepreneuring individual put in this ride. You load up into a little car with glass windows on all sides. Then the car departs into the tunnel which is covered in cheap lights, cheaper lasers. As you head into it the lights pulse to make it look like you're going fast and some announcers keeps saying weird words like "Stars" or "Magma". At one point it had those inflatable scarecrow things, like you see at cheap car dealers, that are opened ended and continually flap over. One fell right in front of our car and has his face plastered to the front until we drove by. Overall it was the equivalent of a cheap Disney ride, almost like a poor mans Space Mountain without the roller coaster aspect.
Once off the ride we wondered around Pudong for a while trying to find a FedEx or UPS to ship our Terra Cotta warriors back. When the heat got to much for us we retreated into the Super Brand Mall. It is pretty much a Western style mall, complete with a food court with delicacies like KFC and Burger King. We chose the latter for lunch before setting out for another look around the city for a Fedex. We eventually ran into a FedEx driver who thankfully spoke perfect English and was able to give us the address of a FedEx store. So we zoomed back home on the subway, grabbed the goods and zoomed back across to the mall. After a good 30 minutes we were able to snag a cab. But this was no ordinary cab. This guy was driving like we were delivering babies in the back. At times he was on the wrong side of the road, driving towards oncoming traffic, only to cut someone off at the last instant to get back on the right side. Most of the time he was singing along to the gibberish playing on the radio. It was an interesting ride and even more so when he eventually pulled over and basically said to get out, which we were happy to do.
After spending a good amount of time working with the FedEx guys to get our items packed and ready to ship (the kid working the counter was quite patient with us) he walked back towards the Oriental Pearl Tower. Figuring it was close to dinner time we decided to stop at the Super Brand Mall again and enjoy some fine Italian dining. So we popped into the Pizza Hut. The food was remarkably good or I just have not had pizza in a while. After filling up we headed back to the hostel just in time to catch crowds. The hostel seemed to explode with people. All the 8 computer terminals were in use and the dining area was equally as crowded. We ordered beers, found a table and sat down to watch Bourne Ultimatum. Unfortunately not everyone was there to watch the movie and I could barely make out some of the dialogue. Eventually frustration set in and I gave up towards the end of the movie and headed to the room. I guess I will never know the secrets of Jason Bourne.
In the middle of the night I was awoken by Justin playing with the air conditioning. At some point it had stopped blowing cold air and the room was hot and humid. He fiddled with it for a while before giving up and we both had a sweat drenched sleep. This morning we had some more fiasco with the tourism guy trying to book our train tickets and trying to get the air conditioning fixed. Safe to say at this point the initial reaction to this place was premature. At this point we are very focused on getting out of Shanghai and heading for Guilin.
