Shanghai, China, Asia

I woke up this morning and decided to do something stupid; I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 5. It seemed like a good idea at the time when I started the download at 7:30am. It seemed like a bad idea when I was still trying to sort out the wreckage at noon. The restore didn’t go well, so I ended up having to restore it as a new phone and start from scratch. I got all my contacts and music back, but I lost all my details from any apps (text messages, lists, games). Not cool Apple.

I finally checked out of the 4 Eyes Youth Hostel and headed out to see what Hangzhou had to offer. It was just another big city really, but I was in a nicer part of town, just outside the city center. I was near West Lake, which is a beautiful lake just to the west of the city, obviously. I had a walk through the parks at the lake, which is a kind of national park. I also paid to go up the Leifing Pagoda, and that was well worth it. It had been a really old pagoda, but it was knocked down and then rebuilt in 2002, so it’s not so old now. It was very interesting to see and there was a great view from the top. Of course, because I’m in China, it was a bit hazy, but much better than most other days.

I hung around in the park for a few hours and then headed back into town to catch a train to Shanghai. I ended up catch the 5:13pm Bullet train, and this one didn’t make any stops on the way back. Top speed: 313km/h. That equates to 194mph. That’s ridiculous. No wonder it only took 49 minutes to get to Shanghai. Shanghai is such a breeze as a traveler now, I love it. Everything about it is just so easy. I really do love this city.

I checked back in to the Rock & Wood Hostel and got settled back into the same room I had before. Before getting too comfortable though, I grabbed my tripod and headed out for the night to take some pictures. It was a nice clear night and I figured if I put if off to tomorrow night it would probably end up raining. I’m really glad I went out too. That skyline looks even more amazing at night. I spent a while snapping shots at the Bund looking over at the Pudong area of the city. I got A LOT of weird looks when I was taking pictures, as if people had never seen a tripod before. A couple of curious people came right over and were staring at the whole setup for minutes. I’m not even sure they knew what a camera was.

I grabbed one of the last subways home around 10:30pm and I’m back at the hostel now. Tomorrow I’ll have a day to check out the city, but first I’ll have to move to an airport hotel. All this moving around is exhausting! I need more sleep!