Home via Hong Kong

From Hong Kong

I flew out of Shanghai on Friday morning on China Eastern Airlines.  Arrived at Hong Kong Airport mid afternoon, so decided to spent the time before my return flight to the UK by heading into Kowloon to get some more photos of the Hong Kong skyline by night.  Unfortunately, low cloud rather spoiled the photographic lighting.

Flight back home was uneventful.

My complete holiday itinerary:

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Shanghai - continued

From Shanghai

From Shanghai

We decided to devote much of our second day in Shanghai to visiting its renowned museum. This turned out to be a good decision.  This place is full of Chinese art – pottery, paining, sculpture – and a vast collection historical artefacts. In some ways it is similar in concept to the British Museum, except that it only really deals with Chinese culture.  The similarities with the British Museum do not stop there. The domed glass roof looks very similar in construction to the new British Museum atrium roof.   As is often the case with museum visits, one gets overload after a couple of hours, and even with a lunch break, we were seriously flagging by 4 pm.  In retrospect we should have split the visit over our two remaining days in Shanghai. The rest of Renmin Park, in which the museum is located, was peasant enough and provided a relaxing break from pounding the museum galleries.

In the evening we fulfilled one of my objectives when spending time in any new city – a visit to a local blues club.  I discovered the Cotton Club (actually, our local Chinese guides helped to some extent), which had a great house band, good beer, and friendly staff.  A splendid night out!

Yesterday, our final day in Shanghai, we were not really sure how best to spend the time, having already done the main attractions.  In the end we opted for a wander round the old city, the area occupied by the original Chinese inhabitants of Shanghai before it became overrun by foreign trading concessions.  In the afternoon, we wrapped things up with a visit to a couple of other parks in the city. 

Shanghai is justifiably on the must-see list for any China tour.  However, with the benefit of hindsight, and if our schedule had been more flexible, I thing two days would have been enough to get the flavour of the city.

 

 

 

 

Shanghai

From Shanghai

From Shanghai

The Xiamen Airlines flight from Xiamen to Shanghai took a little over one hour.  Unfortunately, this arrives in the Hongqiao Domestic Airport rather than the Pudong International Airport, so we were unable to sample the iconic maglev train ride from the airport into the city.   Hopefully I can get to do this on my return journey.

Our hotel is about 4km from the airport, with another 3km or so to get from the hotel to downtown Shanghai.  Rather a soulless tower block, and not particularly cheap by the standards of other Chinese cities, but the rooms are excellent.

In the evening we met up with some of Jason’s Chinese friends, who took us for a tour of some of their favourite bars in the city.  It was certainly helpful having a local to act as a guide, although I got the impression that it would have been easy enough to get around on our own if necessary.  Shanghai has a very cosmopolitan feel to it, which makes the whole experience seem reasonably relaxed if you are used to the pace of life in other large Asian cities.

Today we decided to start with a river boat trip to see some of the city from that vantage point.  Luckily it was a reasonably clear day by Shanghai standards so I was able to get a good view of the impressive Shanghai city skyline on both sides of the river.  This place puts other cities like New York and Hong Kong in the shade when it comes to awe inspiring skyscrapers.  In the afternoon we walked along the Bund – the river promenade that runs alongside the historical buildings constructed during Shanghai’s trading past.  Some of the architecture looked very British, reminiscent of buildings you would find on the Thames Embankment or Liverpool.  Masses of other tourists around, both Chinese and overseas.

Towards the end of the day we crossed over to the Pudong side of the river via the so-called Tourist Tunnel.  This is the zone where most of the high rise construction seems to have taken place in recent years, and is either an impressive indicator of China’s new prosperity, or a dispiriting fortaste of things to come, depending on your outlook.

 

Gulangyu Island, Xiamen

From Xiamen

From Xiamen

From Xiamen

Yesterday was spent exploring the small island of Gulangyu, which lies just of Xiamen.  We took the ferry around the island first, before landing and strolling around the Gulangyu’s compact streets.  Turns out I was wrong about the lack of a colonial past in Xiamen.  In fact, Gulangyu was apparently a British concession until after WW2, which is evident from the architecture and some of the other sights to be found on the island. These included an excellent aquarium, peaceful ornamental gardens, and a quaint piano museum (which reminds me that I have yet to do the new Brentford musical museum!).  Being a Sunday, the place was rather full of visitors from the mainland, but still a very pleasant day’s sightseeing.

This morning we visited Xiamen University, which to some extent was the reason why we were in this part of China at all – Jason had an interview at the university’s economics faculty for a possible professorship there.   I spent the morning wandering around the modern university campus, which seemed to be virtually deserted.  Either it is vacation time or all the students were ensconced in their lecture halls (unlike students at some UK universities I could name).

Next and final destination on this trip is Shanghai.

Xiamen

With business finished in Macau, it was time to head back to China.  I reversed my tracks made earlier in the week by taking the ferry from Macau to Shenzhen airport, where I met up with Jason again.  The one hour flight on Xiamen Airways passed uneventfully, and it was only a relatively short taxi ride from Xiamen airport to our hotel.

I had not realised until I got here that Xiamen is in fact an island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, so in that respect some similarities with Hong Kong and Macau.  The similarities do not end there.  In spite of a lot of new high rise buildings in the downtown area, there is still much older colonial style architecture to be seen down by the waterfront, even though Xiamen was not, as far as I know, a trading colony in the same way as was Macau or Hong Kong.

The first day was spent taking in some of the sights in Xiamen, including a visit to the Overseas Chinese Museum in the morning, and a walk round the splendid Wanshi Botanical Gardens in the afternoon.   In between, there was time for a leisurely lunch at a seafood restaurant by the seafront.   It was notable that the omnipresent smog that hangs over much of southern China was absent from Xiamen.  Not sure whether this is usually the case or we were just lucky.  Anyway, it makes the whole sightseeing process that much more pleasant.  In fact, I was quite impressed by Xiamen overall. With its relatively laid back vibe and air of neat organisation, it was an interesting contrast to other mainland China cities that I have visited.

Tomorrow the plan is to take a ferry around nearby Gulangyu Island.