Shanghai Nights & Fights

Pudong from The Bund.

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I really liked Shanghai, full of life, a bit sleazy though, well, very sleazy. In fact, after dark, if you're not asked at least 10 times a night for sex by touts working for the brothels, you're not really in Shanghai. Got into a bit of a scrape with some bouncers one night (we were drunk, they were bouncers), they were trying to charge us for drinks we'd never ordered, and trying to get us to pay for some women, but we weren't having any of it. They took us into separate rooms to try and extract some cash out of us. I thought they were working Nath over so I tried to get into the other room. In the end we both left with about 5RNB each (basically nothing) and after a little wrestle with a few of them, I left with a few bruises.

Nathan didn't enjoy it so much, the balloon found out his Aussie visa had expired before we got there so we had all hell on trying to send them mails and all that! He ended up getting a 3 month holiday visa instead. Took him a bit of time to get over it, but we still had some good nights.

The Bund.

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If you go there, do not take the 3 hour boat trip up the Huangpu River, unless you're a ship-spotter or have a fetish for large, insdustrial, riverside shitholes, the 1 hour cruise is enough for any man. The first part is actually really good, you get to see all the buildings and the Bund from the river, but after half an hour - oh dear! I fell asleep after 45 minutes. He had to endure a Chinese deaf and dumb guy trying to peddle his ware for the rest of the journey. That's a bit unfair, he was actually a really cool guy and a good artist.

The Bund (embanked quay) is a really lively area of Shanghai, it runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River facing Pudong. Full of nice shops, restaurants and bars etc., but watch out for people begging there. It's not the worst place I've ever been for it, nor were we hassled too often, but one guy approached me with only one arm and the fingers missing on his other hand, and  proceeded to prod me with the stump of one arm asking me for money. I gave him what I had left in change. It was a bit shocking to see, but he seemed ok with it, he was all smiles everytime we saw him anyway.

The Oriental Pearl Tower - China's largest building at present.

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It was pretty smoggy here, as is the norm in China. The views from the Oriental Pearl Tower (468m), were blocked out by it as you can see on the images. Still, it was good to get up there, it's the tallest building in China at present, soon to be overtaken by one right next door to it though.