I'm melting!

14.8.2010 | Day 14 | 10 198 km | Shanghai, China

Weather forecast for a Saturday in Shanghai: Sunny, 38c, feels like 45c. And they weren’t lying. When you leave air conditioned hostel room to the streets, it’s like entering to a sauna with your clothes on. Instant sweating starts and you start to feel exhausted, making it impossible to tour the city for a long time before you need to head back to your hostel. Looking back, hot Moscow was a piece of cake. A Finnish person is not designed for a climate like this!

Skyscrapers rule the city

Shanghai, excluding the hotness, is a very surprising city after Beijing. It’s like the complete opposite with massive skyscrapers and you can watch the buildings just continue on and on from a skyscraper observation deck. It’s a shame we can’t explore this city for more than just for one and a half day, but to properly tour Shanghai, it just would need to be a “little bit” cooler for us.

The most fun in the city we had, when we wandered out from the main streets to narrow alleys and strange shops, watching how the people really live here. Laundry hanging from poles, weird pet shop “malls” selling, well, animals that probably shouldn’t be kept in captivity. It was the first time I saw a tamed squirrel, sitting in a shoulder of his owner. Strange, but it was great to see something real instead of the new skyscrapers. We however did also see something very fake, or maybe I have just missed companies that sell Nakio and Motorcola phones…

Before we exit China, I just have to mention our train journey from hell. Our plan was to use overnight train with 4-berth sleeping cabins, but as they were sold out we had to take the morning train with just regular seats. Now, think our Trans-Mongolian journey with two Chinese in our cabin and multiply it by 100. Everybody had their cell phones and other gaming devices on max volume and when ever they answered a call, it had to be done by shouting. And of course the loud smacking while eating, sigh… The train was also running almost two hours late for an unknown reason, so we were stuck in a horror show for about 14 hours.

But, as I mentioned about opposites describing Beijing and Shanghai, it also has something to do with the people. I received my first thank you in English from a local while I held the door for her. That was actually very rewarding for a change! Walking at the streets you can also somehow feel that it’s a much friendlier city and Shanghai would beat Beijing 100-0, if I had to choose from these two cities as a place to live.

Two travellers taking a moment to stand still, while the city just keeps moving on...