Asia Holiday 2014, August 16 (Sick In Seoul)

I had a second successive bad night trying to sleep. I was also feeling pretty dehydrated so I had to force myself to drink close to two litres of water through the night as well. The hotel bed was a bit of a disaster - not quite long enough unless I slept diagonally, but worse than that the bed and pillow were both ridiculously hard, I was getting neck pain within five minutes of lying down on either the pillow or just the mattress itself. The only solution I came up with was resting on my arm as a pillow, it sort of worked but between the awkward sleeping positions and getting more sick rather than less throughout the night I woke up about once an hour from 7:00pm all the way through to 7:00am. At about 4:00am I realised I was sweating like mad, not just because of the fever but the room was really warm for some reason, so I turned the air-conditioning up almost as far as it went.

The free breakfast was a reasonable consolation to get things back on track, it had the usual range of Asian and Western foods, plus more french fries, which were labelled as "Potato Fly" - brilliant ! There was also a tray of chocolate dessert cake slices which was a bonus for chocolate buffet fans. I went back to the room and slept for a while afterwards, I was only coherent enough and had everything in order to start the day by about 10:30am.

The return of free breakfasts.

I started off at Changdeok-gung Palace, only $3 entry was a pretty good deal. There wasn't a lot to see, but it was a relaxing walk around the palace, a few nice buildings and some garden areas. At the far end of the palace, but still within the palace grounds, there was another ticket booth to gain access to a second palace. This seemed a little odd, as I'm not sure what you'd do if you only wanted to visit the other palace. It was also possible to buy a ticket for a guided tour around a "secret garden" at the back of the palace that you otherwise cannot get access to, but that sounded like a waste of time.

The palace.

After leaving the palace I was within walking distance of Bukchon Hanok Village. The village is supposed to contain a lot of traditional old Korean houses but I seemed to miss out on wherever they were handing out these free maps of the village, so instead I was just wandering around on my own, wherever it looked like lots of people were coming or going. There were a few streets and houses that had some old architecture, but many of them looked like they had recently been cleaned up and renovated, so it didn't really feel like I had stepped back in time or anything like that. I did get to stop in at a Dunkin' Donuts though, so that was a positive.

Some old street.

After I'd covered enough of the village I found the "Seoul Fortress Wall - 1km" sign and decided to give that a try. The kilometre was all uphill and quite a challenge since I was feeling quite dizzy and low on energy. When I reached the wall I found...more signs, "Seoul Fortress Wall - 690 metres" pointing left and "Seoul Fortress Wall - 1800 metres" pointing right. My guess was that it meant you can walk along the wall that far in each direction before reaching the next checkpoint, or maybe something even more exciting. The wall wasn't quite in the same league as The Great Wall of China, it was probably tall enough to keep people out but wasn't nearly as wide. Before moving on I was able to find a good lookout point with a view down to the city.

The Great Wall of Korea.

I walked along the wall for a while, but after it didn't look it would come out anywhere useful for me to continue the day I turned around and went back the way I came from. At the bottom of the hill I reached Gyeongbok-gung where there was a wider range of better looking restaurants - it's a pity I didn't book a hotel closer to this place instead. I paid another $3 to get access to the Gyeongbok-gung Palace, this one was much larger than the previous palace, and had a few different types of buildings, lakes and ponds, which provided a bit more variety. I was slowly fading away as the afternoon rolled on so I needed yet another break before I could continue.

The other palace.

One of many buildings you can't go inside.

I walked back towards the city, passing through Gwanghwamun Square. There were a few monuments in the square but there was also a lot of temporary barriers and electrical equipment being packed up from some event that must have happened earlier in the day. That mystery was soon solved when I ran into a Korean guy who wanted to have a conversation in English - he told me that the pope had made a visit that morning. I found it funny that the guy appeared to be personally offended when I told him that I didn't follow any religion.

This guy.

And this guy.

I got on the train for the first time all day, down to Seoul Station. I checked out the Lotte Outlets, even though I was more than a little dubious there would be a good outlet store right in the middle of the city - usually these places are miles from the city and nowhere near a train station for an added degree of difficulty. There was a bunch of clothes and sports mini-stores on the top level where each advertised the discount percentage they were individually offering. Adidas and Nike were of course just 10% off, but Le Coq Sportif had 60% off items that probably had inflated prices, I found a nice Tour De France t-shirt which came in at about $30 after the discount.

Dunkin' Donuts, weird banana shaped donuts and muffins.

I started heading towards World Cup Stadium station but got off a few stops early to search for dinner. I spent a while walking around and came up empty once again, but then found a place called Monster Pizza. I didn't have a huge appetite, despite having eaten very little all day, but I still figured I could knock off a whole pizza by myself...until I saw the size of it. The pizza really was a very generous family size, so I only got three slices, but I was dying from an overload of carbs before I had finished the second. Somehow I eventually made a dent in the third as well, but I didn't feel good about it.

Half of a monster pizza.

Some energy drinks I was in no condition to try. Also Welch's Grape Soda !

I got back on to the train and this time made it to the World Cup Stadium for the night's big match between FC Seoul and Incheon United. I purchased a ticket for 14,000 won from the counter, with no sign of any scalpers this time. It looked like there was another ticket category for 20,000 won but the girl didn't seem to think there was, so I settled for the cheaper one. The nicest thing about the match was the much more relaxed atmosphere - no bag checks and no food and drink restrictions, people were even bringing in their own cans of beer and a lots of families were in attendance. They also didn't even bother with the national anthem, which was actually a bit disappointing.

The stadium was pretty big, as you might expect given it's name, so the top deck was closed off. The lower decks were quite full, easily bigger than the attendance at both Shanghai matches, with the home crowd mostly concentrated behind the goals at one end and all along one side of the pitch. I grabbed a seat behind the goals because it looked like the sun might be an issue in the other general admission areas. The matched start off quite slow and was pretty comparable to the quality of the Chinese league, until FC Seoul got it together after about 25 minutes and exploded with three quality goals before half time, both through good build up play and some excellent individual shots from outside the box.

The home end.

My fever was starting to return and I wasn't feeling so great, so I didn't make it far beyond half-time, but I had seen some good actions and goals by that time so I wasn't too upset about leaving early. The final score was a win to FC Seoul 5-1.

Game time.

Asia Holiday 2014, August 15 (Let's ROK)

I hoped to get close to six hours of sleep overnight but it ended up more like half that. Some new people must have checked in because there was doors slamming until like 1:00am and loud conversations going on in the hallway. In addition to that I think I'm starting to come down with a fever, so I was still exhausted when 5:00am came along and I just hoped to have enough mental capacity to make it to the airport for a flight to South Korea.

A short timeline of the morning:

• 5:00am check-out of hotel and get 1000 RMB deposit refunded on credit card
• 5:10am got to the subway, first person on the platform !
• 5:30am first train departed
• 5:40am change trains and wait for the next line to begin
• 6:00am second train departed towards the airport
• 6:30am change platform and train, but remain on the same train line, for some reason
• 7:10am arrive at airport
• 7:40am finished check-in and security
• 8:10am boarded plane for Seoul

The Korean Air guy at the check-in counter was helpful, he said only middle seats were available but because I was tall - or taller than most on board - I got the spacious emergency exit row. We were stuck on the runway for about half an hour but still managed to arrive on time, so they must put a lot of padding in their flight times.

I converted my remaining Chinese money into Korean "won" and got 49,000 worth - those numbers are crazy, the exchange rate to Australian is like 1 to 950. I also got another 200,000 won from the ATM, the largest denomination is only 10,000 or about $10 which is a bit silly. Incheon Airport was pretty fantastic, everything was clean, white and shiny and they even had a movie cinema !

Airport cinema.

I splashed out for the express train direct to Seoul which cost all of about $8 and took 45 minutes, I'm not sure how much cheaper the stopping all stations train could be that you would take it instead. The Seoul railway station was again really confusing, the express train was down in like Basement Level 6 and the subway was all the way up at street level, out of the building, and down a few more escalators. If I thought that was confusing, buying a subway ticket was even worse. Since I had all my luggage to deal with I was just going to buy a single trip ticket, as I only had to go to the very next station on the line, but when I pressed that button on the machine it said you needed to have a special 1150 won note, plus a 500 won deposit. What the hell is a 1150 won note !?

So I advanced my travel plans and went into the convenience store nearby to buy a T-Money card - again it's a card that is better than Myki simply by existence. The card cost 2500 won at the store, but they don't give you any credit and can't reload it for you, so it was back to the station machines to load some credit on it. With that finally taken care of I just had to get down to the subway, only they have those stupid turnstile gates where it is absolutely impossible to get through with a suitcase ! I was already starting to feel a bit run down as this fever was taking over, but I just managed to lob my suitcase over the turnstiles and then hoped that my card allowed me through to collect it, which thankfully it did.

The train trip took an entire two minutes and I was out again, and I emerged in the middle of a crazy market. I knew my hotel was close to a market but it didn't realise the market would be absolutely everywhere. I had a poor quality Google Map which only had a few main streets on it, but there weren't many street signs around and all the street names were almost identical anyway, such as:

• Namdaemunsijang-gil
• Namdaemunsijang 4-gil
• Namdaemunsijang 6-gil

Some of them ran north-south, some east-west and some in other various directions, it made no sense at all and didn't seem to run in numerical order like you would expect. I was feeling pretty crap by now, it was pretty hot outside without a hat or sunscreen, and I was trying to roll my suitcase through the market and around people who didn't want to move out of the way - it felt like forever but was more like 20-30 minutes until that magical moment arrived that I found the hotel. Once I'd arrived it all seemed so easy, but it was a hell of a time trying to track it down.

After I had checked-in I had a headache coming on too, so I just had to rest for an hour as I had no energy at all. I came up with a small plan so that the afternoon would not be wasted - I walked over to the Myeong-dong district. I saw some interesting snack vendors - one was selling what looked like french fries mashed together on a stick, and another was selling an ice-cream that was over a foot long. I spotted N Seoul Tower in the distance, but it was a bit too far to go there today. I got a drink from the Smoothie King store and hoped it might help settle down my sickness a little, but it didn't make much difference.

I wish I knew why there was some many people around on a Friday afternoon.

I got as far as Myeong-dong Cathedral through the crowded streets then took a different route back to explore a little more of the surrounding area. I had a look for something for dinner that I thought I might be able to handle eating, but nothing really matched with my current physical state. I ended up a little bit past the hotel in the opposite direction at Sungnyemun Gate before deciding to call it a day, I just got some bakery items, snacks and drinks to get me through until the return of free breakfasts in the morning !

Myeong-dong Cathedral (foreground) and N Seoul Tower (background).

If you reach Sungnyemun Gate, you've gone too far.

When I got back to the hotel I found the Australia Channel on TV ! Basically the channel is total garbage, except is has all of the weekly AFL games and by luck Carlton vs. Geelong was about to start. I feel asleep several times during the game and I knew Carlton were going to just lose in the end, but it was still a pleasant discovery. I went to bed about 7:00pm with the hope I wouldn't be as sick in the morning.

My other opinions of the hotel:

• The room is tiny !
• No welcome guide to explain anything about the room or hotel facilities
• No shampoo provided !?
• Crazy Japanese style toilet with a whole control panel in Korean
• The people at reception could speak almost no English at all
• At least there are free breakfasts

Asia Holiday 2014, August 14 (Train Under Water)

It was already my last day in Shanghai and China. I had a bit of a later start than usual, when I walked down to the convenience store at about 8am for an ice-cream based breakfast it was already very muggy and humid. That weather didn't last long though, as by the time I was ready and making the short trip to the subway I got caught in the middle of a massive downpour. Big puddles were popping up everywhere as the rain kept getting heavier. I managed to get undercover and onto a train before becoming too soggy for the rest of the day.

By the time I reached Middle Huaihai Road the rain had just about stopped. This area is supposedly known as the "French Concession" area so I assumed there would be a lot of nice old shops and houses around, but other than the quite calm tree-lined streets I didn't notice much. I passed a theatre where people were lining up to audition for Chinese Idol 2, if the lines weren't so long I might have been able to stop in and perform William Shatner's Rocket Man for the judges.

C-Pop.

I had to go through Fuxing Park to get back on to Middle Huaihai Road, it was good but also not particularly French, it didn't really remind of Jardin des Plantes. Back on the main road there was a retail Nike store, I found a Nike Shanghai shirt which had a decent design but amazingly they only had large and above. The Adidas store wasn't so good, just some retro NBA jerseys from the 90's.

Fuxing Park.

K11 Art Mall.

I took the train across the river to the New Pudong district for the first time, but the rain had started up again during that time. After taking some more umbrella-obstructed photos I took shelter inside the Super Brand Mall which was a super big mall, there was at least ten floors. The only sports store on the store directory was another one of those crappy collection of mini-stores. A really annoying trend I've found in China is that the staff are trained to behave like stalkers. The second you walk into most stores you have a staff member attach and follow you around - not saying anything or providing any assistance, just silently shadowing you around the store. I'm not sure if they are preventing theft or trying to be helpful and on-hand in case you need help, but it's damn annoying if not disturbing. Whenever I encountered this crap I just walked straight out of the store.

Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

I got a smoothie from DQ for lunch, it wasn't great, I should have got another Blizzard, they are much better and you get it free if they can't demonstrate that it can be held upside down and not fall out - I'm not sure if you have to eat if off the ground if it does fall out though.

A whole basement of bakeries !

There was still more rain coming down so I walked across the street to...another mall, the ICF Mall. This one was a lot smaller but did have another Nike and Adidas store. I picked up another stalker from Adidas so I didn't spend a lot of time there.

Finally there was a bit of relief from the rain so I walked down to the Riverside Promenade. From the river there is a clear view across to the other half of Shanghai, with The Bund in the forefront. There was a lot of wind down by the river so of course my umbrella kept turning inside out - on the second day of use just like I predicted, but it still seemed to be functional afterwards.

Huangpu district.

Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center.

I went back to the hotel to drop off some shopping and get most of my packing done for tomorrow's flight. I checked out the gym facilities, they had one fairly old rower, stepper and treadmill machine for about 20 floors worth of guests - I guess that's an indication of how much use they get.

People love their escalators.

I got another burrito for dinner at Mex Co since I didn't want to waste time again searching for a good place for dinner, then I headed out to Shanghai Hongkou Football Stadium. There weren't quite as many scalpers as yesterday but still quite a few. Since I had a lot of time I was able to track down the ticket booth, which was still selling tickets for the game. It was quite a strange scenario as the scalpers were operating directly in front of the ticket booth, and there were even police standing around who didn't care at all, even engaging in conversation with them. One of the more enthusiastic scalpers was interrupting people in the middle of buying tickets from the staff at the ticket booth and trying to offer a better deal.

I listened to what one of the sellers had to say, they were claiming to sell a 380 RMB VIP ticket for 100 RMB, but since I couldn't really understand what was printed on the ticket I just bought a 100 RMB ticket from the booth - the lowest category was 80 RMB and I think the highest was about 500 RMB - so even the lowest price here was more than I paid yesterday.

Tonight's game was between Shanghai Shenhua (also known as Shanghai Greenland) and Changchun Yatai. It wasn't nearly as hot and humid, but the ground was quite wet and slippery from the rain during the day which caused quite a few skill errors. Shanghai looked like they had gone ahead after six minutes but the player was just offside, then they conceded a goal just before half time to go into the break down 1-0. The people sitting around me weren't great, one guy kept spitting on the ground - which seems to be a pretty common and acceptable practice throughout China - and another guy must have gone through at least five cigarettes before half time. He was also one of those losers who stands up whenever the home team looks like they are about to get a shot on goal, but thankfully it wasn't blocking my line of sight. Despite all of this it was still a better experience than when Amir and I visited the Bernabeu and had people spitting nuts and seeds everywhere and puffing on cigars.

The blues fans.

Game time.

At the half time break I was able to pick a seat away on my own because the attendance was quite low once again, which made the second half more enjoyable. I was thinking about leaving as I had a very early start tomorrow, then Shanghai got a goal to even the match at 1-1. Within five minutes a poor defensive error had them down 2-1 again, and then a couple of minutes another mistake and they were losing 3-1. The away team decided to celebrate in front of the home crowd, resulting in lots of bottles and other objects being through down onto the field.

I left with the score at 3-1, Shanghai did get a late goal afterwards but still lost 3-2. The train back to the hotel was above ground most of the way so I was able to get a bit of a view of what all the flashy buildings along the river looked like at night - pretty cool with all the coloured lights. I finished packing by about 11:00pm and had to be back up and away again at 5:00am...

Big city lights.

• Shanghai Summary
• 7 out of 10
• Good
• Air feels fresher
• Heaps of bakeries
• Subway interchanges slightly better, most of the time
• Would be a nicer city for living in than Beijing
• Bad
• A lot of places were too far away, would take a half or whole day
• Subway platforms not always on the same side
• Weather didn't work out as well
• Missed Out
• Century Park
• Jade Buddha Temple
• Qibao Ancient Town
• Shanghai F1 Circuit
• Sheshan Forest Park

• China Summary
• 8 out of 10
• Good
• Cheap and reliable public transport
• Cheap food and snacks
• Generally organised chaos
• Long hours for restaurants and shops
• Quite different culture
• Bad
• Cars drive on the right hand side of the road
• Drivers have little to no respect for pedestrians
• Language barriers
• People usually don't stay on the right side of escalators
• Spitting in public

Asia Holiday 2014, August 13 (Top Of The Lake)

After one day in Shanghai I was off for a day trip to Hangzhou, due to the very condensed schedule of this holiday. The travel took about 90 minutes this time, where I just caught up on sleep again. The station at Hangzhou was a combination of bus and train so it was a bit of a mess, but I just made sure I was heading roughly west after exiting, so that I'd eventually reach the West Lake area.

As I was heading towards Hefang Street there was a big street cleaner vehicle doing laps of the street while playing the "It's A Small World" tune, that seemed a little weird. Hefang Street was another kind of market area, various souvenirs and a small food street, but no magnets again - I guess these smaller cities just don't have enough demand for magnets.

Hefang Street.

When Hefang Street ended I was in Wushan Square and at the bottom of a small mountain, possibly it was Mt Ziyang. I didn't have it marked on my map for the day but took a short detour and started up the hill. There was a small bird sanctuary of some sort where there was hundreds of pigeons hanging out, I kept going a bit further but there was just a temple entrance at the top. I thought I might be able to get a good perspective of the West Lake and surrounding area from up above, but the view was mostly obstructed by trees so I hurried back down to the bottom to continue on with the day.

Wushan Square.

On my way out of Wushan Square I almost didn't notice the Best Bite Donuts store, which would have been a disaster. They had a whole range of interesting flavours of donuts, similar to a Dunkin' Donuts, and I purchased a Coconut and an Oreo for about 6 RMB each. They were a little bit small, but really good quality and taste, and cheap too.

Too many donuts for just one day.

Soon after I did make it to West Lake, it's a huge lake just beyond the western fringe of the city, so it's pretty impossible not to find it. I walked north along the east coast to the end of Hubin Road, but there wasn't really a lot of sights to see along the way - a little disappointing so far. The lake had a lot of boats going in various directions across it, and I could see a couple of temples and pagodas far in the distance. I was already starting to get a little bit worried about the amount of walking that would be required to complete a lap though.

West Lake.

Once again it was nearly lunch time already, and I had found a special place for today. I had to walk a good fifteen minutes away from the lake, but eventually tucked away in an alley I found...Triple O's by White Spot. They actually had a veggie burger on the menu ! I ordered the same as my previous visit in Hong Kong - the veggie burger meal with blueberry milkshake upgrade. It was a little expensive with the extra 29 RMB for the milkshake - since milk seems to be very expensive in China - the whole meal was 94 RMB but definitely worth it. Once again, no foreign credit cards were being accepted...

Triple O's !!!

After lunch was done I only had about three hours before I had to start getting back to the train station. I started off on a lap around West Lake - I could have hired a bike from one of the public bike stands, but you needed to pay a 300 RMB deposit to get a smart card, then you could hand in the card at the end and get your deposit back, but it all sounded a bit too complicated as there were only certain places you could buy and return these cards on the same day.

I started off along Bai Causeway, which is a bit of a shortcut along the north side of the lake. I turned on my Garmin GPS watch to keep track of how I was going for time and distance, and it was already 2km and 20 minutes by the time I reached the end of the causeway, a lot longer than I estimated it would be.

Bai Causeway.

I had reached the west side of the lake by now, but the biggest stretch was yet to come, the north to south path called Su Causeway was about twice as long as the previous section. I decided to speed up to a slow jog, passing Mid Lake Pavillion out on a small island, but I missed another supposed sight called "Three Pools Reflecting The Moon". It sounds like it should be good, but I have no idea what it was or what it was meant to look like. I was quite surprised by the number of people out on foot attempting a lap of the lake as well, particularly given that it was a very hot day.

Mid Lake Pavillion (left) and Liefeng Pagoda (right).

After finally reaching the bottom of the lake I could see Liefeng Pagoda which had just been a small mark on the horizon for most of the day. I didn't really have time to stop and enter the grounds, but you could still get a reasonable view of the pagoda just from passing by. By the time I had continued back around to near where I first reached the lake at the start of the day the GPS had passed 7km, and that wasn't even a full lap.

I took a different route back to the train station and found all of the good shops hidden away in a different part of the city - lots of bakeries and fresh fruit at last ! That fun didn't last long as the wait for the train wasn't so great, the station was a bit run down, crowded and stuffy with no air-conditioning, so it was a relief when the train showed up - despite all of the apparent chaos everything has been run efficiently and on time so far, which is quite an achievement.

• Hangzhou Summary
• 6 out of 10
• Good
• Lots to explore
• Some canals running through the city
• Triple O's by White Spot
• Bad
• Old town was pretty disappointing
• Too far to see on foot, really need a bike and probably a good map
• Missed Out
• Baochu Pagoda
• Grand Canal
• Xixi Wetland Park

Back in Shanghai I dropped off all of my belongings at the hotel and hurried down to Shanghai Stadium on the subway. Unlike Beijing there was quite a few people trying to sell tickets for the match. I wasn't exactly sure but I think the retail price of a ticket is 30-40 RMB, although I wasn't certain if it was possible to buy tickets at the stadium for this game either. After checking out the scalpers routine for a few minutes I started negotiations with one of them, he started at 100 RMB and I offered 60 instead. He came down to 80 and I went to 70, he still wanted 80 so I started to walk off and then he was quick to settle for 70.

I got to the game a little early and it was pretty deserted. No doubt I could have purchased a ticket from the stadium if there was such a thing and I could find it, but really it would have saved me $5 at best so I didn't really care. The night's match was between the home team Shanghai East Asia (also knows as Shanghai SIPG) and Henan Jianye - no idea what or where Henan is. A little bit more of a crowd turned up before kick off, but there was still large sections of the stadium, particularly the upper deck, that were closed off due to low attendance numbers. According to Wikipedia their average attendance is 12,000 - which is up 20% !

The home fans, outnumbered by flags.

I was quite curious to find out if the China Super League was any good and how it compared to the A-League. The players were largely locals, but there was also a few foreigners - mostly Brazilian - on each team. The pitch was in pretty good condition and the weather was alright for football, so I think that helped things along too. Shanghai were the better team but wasted a perfect chance on goal after 15 minutes so it was still 0-0 at half time.

Game time.

The night had remained pretty humid so the second half seemed to be played a lot slower than the first. After about 80 minutes Shanghai finally had a breakthrough and held on for a 1-0 victory. It's hard to judge on just one game but the quality was somewhat comparable to the A-League. The A-League does seem to have improved a bit in the last year or two so perhaps I would still have them slightly ahead. Still, it was a good, cheap way to spend an evening out.

Asia Holiday 2014, August 12 (The Pearl)

I fashioned a quick breakfast out of leftover fruit and bakery items from Beijing, then headed down to reception to book train tickets for a day trip to Hangzhou tomorrow. I asked about tickets for some Shanghai soccer matches as well, but the responses of "foot...ball ?" and "sock...er ?" weren't so encouraging, so I promptly gave up on that.

With that taken care of I took the train down to People's Square. The subway came out in the middle of People's Park, where I walked around and can confirm that it was a park with people in it. There was a pretty cool looking Shanghai Grand Theatre just outside the park, and across the road was the actual People's Square, which I think had the Shanghai Museum.

The best I could come up with at People's Park.

The Grand Theatre.

Yesterday I walked along Nanjing West Road, so today I tried Nanjing East Road pedestrian street. It was better in the sense there was no traffic, but all the good shopping seemed to have been left over on the west side. The road ends at the Hangpu River - the area is known as The Bund which is a Persian word if Wikipedia is to be believed. It started raining just as I arrived, so I had to try an juggle an umbrella in one hand and a camera in the other to take photos, not easy but somehow I manage - and the umbrella worked. There were a number of interesting looking buildings across the river, including the Jinmao Tower, Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Shanghai World Financial Centre Tower.

A poor man's Nanjing West Road.

Pudong New Area.

Pudong New Area in the rain.

One good photo without an umbrella creeping into the shot - not my umbrella at least...

The Bund.

I went to the north end of The Bund and reached the Monument To The People's Heroes, but my shoes and socks were already starting to get damp and I didn't want to get blisters like on my previous trip, so I jumped back on the train to get out the rain. Since it was getting towards lunch time I chose a shopping mall called Thumb Plaza - as it was a fair distance away I hoped the rain might have stopped by the time I got there, and I also thought it might be an outlet mall of some sort. The plaza was pretty empty, there was a kind of sports mall where a number of brands each had a miniature store with various discounts, but I did not come across anything worthwhile - although a pair of dry socks probably would have been a great idea. I took a break for lunch and then got the train back to The Bund as the rain had cleared up.

Obelisk Of Light.

Next I went south along The Bund, past the Customs House and various other expensive old buildings that I don't know the names of. Not far away was Yuyuan Bazaar. I had to walk through a small garden that I thought was Yuyuan Gardens, but turns it is was just a small garden... The bazaar is like a market for anyone unfamiliar with the word, pretty busy with lots of small shops like you'd expect in a market, I even found a place selling magnets. There was a big line to get take away steamed buns from one store. I think the store is famous for their buns, but they had a window where you could see them being made and they didn't look any different to the buns you see on every street corner and in every convenience store - I would have bought some but they never have English descriptions for what is inside each bun.

Every financial district needs one of these.

Not Yuyuan Gardens.

Yuyuan Bazaar.

It was only 3pm but my feet were already hurting again, it seems like each day I can last a little bit less than the previous day, so I took the train over to the China Art Museum and had a break for half an hour next to the Mercedes-Benz Arena and Hangpu River - the arena looks pretty futuristic but apparently there are no sports played there, only occasional concerts and a preseason NBA game in October, I was a couple of months too early for that one.

Mercedes-Benz Arena.

It wasn't until I started back to the train station that I realised how cool the China Art Museum looked. There was also a River Mall across the street so I took a look inside. It was a flashy and brand new mall, a few water features, but no people. I think the location was bad and it was full of high end stores, so I don't think it will survive.

China Art Museum.

The only worthwhile stop at the mall.

I was planning to stop at Middle Huaihai Road next, but my feed had done enough, so I went in search of dinner instead. I found this nice place where I was able to get something like a vegetable curry and a banana milk drink, the curry was good but the drink was a bit sad.

CoCo Chibanya Curry.