I write as we are on our journey home - our tour has come to an end and we farewelled our fellow travellers as we each head back to our various corners of the world and boarded our flight leaving Shanghai.... EVENTUALLY.... In what had become for us a regular event, after queuing for an hour at the check in counter we find our flight is delayed (5 out of 6 departures have been delayed!!). So there was an immediate problem as we knew we wouldn't make our connection in Kuala Lumpur for our flight to Adelaide... no worries - they re-ticketed us on a later flight to Melbourne and then on to...... Auckland!!!!! only a minor typo.... AKL instead of ADL!!!! Phew - lucky I picked that up in the Chinese conversation happening behind the check in desk!!!
Aaaaahhh China. I'm glad I've visited and seen the amazing sights but there's not a lot to encourage me back... especially the airline system.... a seriously large amount of time lost in flight delays, not to mention being diverted to a different airport on arrival in Shanghai a couple of days ago which meant of course there was no-one there to meet us and we had to wait another hour to be picked up.
Not wishing to offend anyone who has Chinese connections but the locals generally don't do anything to encourage foreign tourists either (definitely among the rudest and pushiest people we've ever encountered) - unless they are directly employed in the hospitality industry in which case they are usually super nice.
We have also observed a blatant disregard for rules here... eg going in where it says No Entry, smoking where it says No Smoking, drivers moving traffic hazard cones so they can drive where they aren't supposed to, and as mentioned before, vehicles going through red lights was quite common.(just a few examples)
Anyway, after our amazingly dry run (considering we came expecting to get wet) we did have a couple of days of rain but the temperature was still warm so it didn't really matter too much. It cooled the place down (high twenties instead of mid to high thirties) and cleared the air. Unfortunately though it coincided with our time in Guilin/Yangshou so for those of you who know China, you know this is one of the most scenic places to visit so we didn't get to appreciate it at it's best. However it was still magnificent. It's a landscape filled with karsts - huge rocky structures emerging from the earth. A land version of Halong Bay if you've been there.
Our last couple of days have been in Shanghai. Depending on which web site you look at some claim it to be the most populated city in the world (based on city proper not entire metropolis). It's the entire population of Australia in one city!! An amazingly diverse collection of architecture (old and new) made driving around quite an eye-opener. An evening river cruise showed that Shanghai, like the other cities, loves to light up the place at night in spectacular style. The cleanliness of streets and the beautiful parks and gardens also continued throughout our trip. Also common everywhere was the large amount of ongoing development. One of our guides joked that due to the huge number of construction sites China has adopted a new national bird - the crane!!!
Here's a few more miscellaneous things we've learned/observed/experienced:-
* Overall China was much more affluent, modernised and westernised than we expected.
*Jacobs Creek is the best known Australian wine here.. and David kept proudly telling everyone it was from the area he grew up in! There's also plenty of Yellowtail too!
*Pharmacies are a blend of old and new. Typically one side of the shop has the drugs as we know it - the other side had all the traditional Chinese herbs and "other" things....
*A visit to a food market where customers could purchased live specimens and have them killed and dressed (eg ducks chickens) revealed that there are definitely some four legged furry animals on the menu that we don't consume in Australia (not that I know of anyway)
*Churches are rare. I think we only sighted a total of 4 in our whole time.
*Museum is code for shop! - if prefixed by words like Silk or Pearl... that actually means you get a 5 minute "information session" followed by 25 minutes of shopping time!!
*National Museum however is a REAL museum. Like many places everyone undergoes security checks but this one did something unique. If you wanted to take any bottles of liquid into the museum with you, you had to stand there and drink some of it in front of the security guard to prove it wasn't something dangerous!
*Toilets become a regular topic of conversation and the women of the tour group develop a scoring system (anyone who's traveled much will understand).
*Unique accommodation experience in Shanghai. The hotel is located on the outside wall of a huge Olympic size sports stadium - I think some of the rooms are actually located under the corporate boxes and tiered seating! We were allowed to go inside for a look and could have gone jogging on the track if we felt inclined!
* Travelled to 88th floor of a building in 45 second at a speed of 9.1m/sec.
* Saw the Maglev train wizz past at over 400km/hour.
One final note: In my last email I had mentioned that one of our group was taken to hospital. We were thankful to finally receive news a couple of days ago. Turns out he'd had a heart attack and has had surgery for a blocked artery He'll be sent home to Aus once stabilised.
Signing off as we sit in Melbourne awaiting the last leg home.
(...and posted to blogger 3 days later)
Jenny and David
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