Shanghai, China, Asia

Good news and bad news: The bad news is that I got almost no sleep at all on the train last night. The good news is that it was my last long distance train ride for my whole trip! All-in-all it was a pretty good way to travel. I liked that I could pay for a cheap ticket, fall asleep (hopefully) and wake up in another city, while also saving a night’s accommodation at a hostel. But I’ll most likely remember night’s like last night when the other people around me are just so incredibly rude and noisy, it would be impossible for anyone to get any sleep. I powered through and made it to the morning without anyone getting hurt. The train was running an hour late, so we ended up in Shanghai at 1pm instead of noon. No biggie.

And by first impressions, I love Shanghai!! It was dead easy to get from the train station to the metro, and every sign I see and announcement I hear is in Chinese and then in English! It’s so easy to travel in this city! I found my metro lines easily and thanks to the email directions I got from the hostel, I found the Rock & Wood Youth Hostel very easily. It’s a very cool looking place with little coy ponds and a huge common area downstairs for travelers to hang out.

I was so tired when I first got here that I decided to pay the extra money for a single room so I could guarantee some sleep. Of course, after I did this I noticed that almost all of the guests here were westerners, so it probably would have been okay in a dorm. A single room is still only $18 when a dorm was $10, so I’m pretty happy with that. It’s a very basic room, just a bed, desk and lamp, but I don’t care at this point. It has a shared bathroom for the floor that is right near my room, and free wifi in the room, it’s perfect for me.

I grabbed a bite to eat in the restaurant downstairs while they made up my room and then moved my stuff up. I really wanted to lay down for a few minutes, but I realized that if I did that I wasn’t going to leave the hostel for the rest of the day. I jumped in the shower and headed straight out to see what Shanghai looks like. My hostel didn’t have any free maps of the city (and I’m not paying $2.50 for a map I would potentially use once), so I found out where the city center metro stop was and jumped off there. I found a Sofitel Hotel and just went in and asked the concierge for a city map, easy.

This is a very cool looking city. I walked down Nanjing Road, which is the main shopping street in Shanghai and is covered in billboards, neon lights and big TV screens. I made my way to the river and got to see the most impressive city skyline I’ve seen on this trip. It was beautiful. I took a few pictures and found an American guy to take a picture of me. It turns out he’s from Cleveland and he’s been working here for two years. He was walking the boardwalk with his girlfriend and they both seem pretty cool. I’m going to go out with Joey and some of his friends tomorrow night, so that should be good. It’s been difficult to find good social situations here in China, so this will be a nice change.

I hung around in the city for a little while longer and then made my way back to the hostel for about 7pm. I’m absolutely exhausted so I’m going to try to get to bed early. The combination of a couple of bad nights in the dorms in Xi’an and then that train ride has me feeling like a zombie. Can’t wait to get some sleep!