Day 4 in shanghai. - Cherieladie;

[WARNING!! Long post ahead!!]

Look of the day!

We were up bright and early for a long day! Visited the most iconic building of the city – the oriental pearl tower. It was the first time taking the city metro was well.

My metro ticket and the busiest station in shanghai – People’s centre (人民广场). The picture is a little blur cos I panicked a little when the door opened.

Inside of the train, during the non peak period. Think this was 11am in the morning.

Another shot. Similar to our train stations.

The iconic building from a distance.

There’s something about circular overhead bridges and shanghai. They are all over major traffic junctions.

The thing I love most about shanghai is the weather.. Guess its party due to the fact that I visited in spring. It’s sunny yet, chilly and windy.

The bottle opener building, which is shanghai’s world financial center and jin mao tower.. Interestingly, shanghai’s sky is always hazy/foggy. Bernice says she isn’t sure whether it’s the weather or it’s pollution but it does make the city look a little gloomy!

Us, at the bottom of the building.

And we are up! The elevator girls amaze me, really. Cos they just mumble and babble their scripts about the facts of the building in Chinese and almost incoherent English, that I really found it funny! It’s probably the accent that I really need to get used to.

At the middle section, where the glass is filled with arrows and the cities that are ahead of you and the distance apart.

Xsilly, with the river behind him..

View from the building. If not for the skyscrapers, I actually think it looks a little like Rome.

View of the bund.

The bund on the left coast and Hyatt on the right. This is considered a rather clear sky so I was quite thankful I could see relatively far..

At 350m in the sky, with the bottle opener behind me..

It’s hard to capture the building at the back or my face, so here’s another one of my pretty face. =)

We paid extra to go all the way up to 350 metres but i seriously think its a waste of money. The glass panels are all stained with dust and dirt and it pretty horrible! It wasn’t maintained at all and it was only a tiny circle so there wasn’t much to see. Or maybe it was maintained but the city is too dusty? Still whatever it is, I guess it was an experience of sorts to have gone up there.

Can you see the stains on the glass streaking down from the top? I cant deny that the view is superb though.

The tower beneath my feet.

Kneeling down. I wanted to do all sorts of funny acts, but I was wearing a skirt so this was the best I could do.. There were a bunch of guys lying down on their backs with their arms and legs in the air, struggling, simulating that they are falling from high above while their friend took pictures from top down. It was hilarious and fun to watch.

Bernice, with the huge circular overhead bridge beneath her. Can you see how small the cars are in comparison?

We goofed around the arcade level for a while before popping down to the open level for more pictures.

Xsilly joins in the fun! Can you see DBS bank building at the back?

A much nicer (visible) view of the bund across.

What I didnt expect to do was to spend hours in the museum downstairs, simply because I didn’t know it was that huge and with so much to see!

There was a huge collection of antique cars, public transport vehicles like trams and buses on display, I took pictures of every single item but decided I shan’t bore you with those. The museum also houses a collection of displays from the various era that shanghai has gone through, the lifestyle/houses/activities from the past, the various famous buildings, interactive play areas where there were all sorts of mirror that make you look weird, a chance to be a star where you stand at a spot and you’ll appear on the big screen and loads of interesting tidbits about shanghai and how it has evolved. My favorite was this display of the bund that has various lights to emulate how the bund will look like from sunrise to sunset each day and how and when each building will light up and switch off the lights. Amazing feature really. I stood there for ages watching the cycle over and over again.

There were so much to see, but we eventually dragged ourselves out and gave up as we were royally famished!

Parting shot with the signature coke polar bear at the exit of the building.

Our lunch, and desserts. From bellagio at super brand mall （正大广场）。Yummy!

We hopped onto a cab next to visit one of those ancient water towns that still exist today. Our original itinerary was Qi bao but the cab driver persuaded us to go 朱家角instead. Seriously, we felt cheated cos when we arrived, he wanted to extort money to wait for us and send us back because apparently, it’s hard to take a cab back from there!! Thankfully, Bernice is damn good at bargaining and we got him to wait, without paying a premium price for it. I won’t know what to do without her! I would just pay the driver..

Seriously reminds me of venice, except that there were splashes of oriental lanterns all around. We were walking through the entire town and there were many quaint little cafes that looked like its a really cool place to sit and chill. We only had 2 hours to cover the area (the cab driver was waiting) so we didn’t go into any of those.

Us, in a post card cafe. Amazing amount of postcards and the cafe had a really really cool concept which, I’ll share in a separate post.

Yes, she wanted to post her phone, which fortunately for her, the slot was too small. I love the dragon that was twirling around the postbox though.

Any drinks for you?

Us at the pavilion.

Random street.

Bernice checking out the fruits.

One last shot of the post office and we hopped back into the cab for the long journey home.

The sun setting in a distance.

We both crashed out on the 50 mins journey back, which was bad to do in a foreign country cos we are both girls and we could have been kidnapped or raped or whatever… We struggled to stay awake though, but fatigue consumed us mid way..

My order-in dinner. Eggplant pasta and a roast duck leg. Shanghai has this special courier service that send food to your doorstep, and you can choose from a long list of restaurants around your area only for a small fee. A service that’s really apt for me that night. And yup, that’s the end of day 4 in shanghai.

Read about day 1, day 2 and day 3..