Our final 3 days in China were in Shanghai. Our accommodation was really good, in a good location but the buildings were really old, and from the outside it looked like a ghetto. We liked it here, but we were already starting to think about Japan, so we saw a few of the main sights and did some washing and got ready to travel again.

On the first day we headed to The Bund, and saw the waterfront and city skyline. Then we went across to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, and went up to the observation deck. The glass bottomed viewing area was crazy. We then finished by heading along Nanjing street, the main shopping street.

The next day we trekked across town to find a decent post office to send some things home. We then had some lunch and walked through the former French Concession area. 

China was amazing and really worth visiting. It is another world. It is mostly chaos, every man and women for themselves, whether driving, riding or even walking. Pushbikes and motor bikes are deadly, the footpath is fair game and they don’t stop at lights or crossings. In the end I tried staring them down as we crossed but they wouldn’t stop, they would run you over if you let them. 

We thought coming here would be bitterly cold, but there were only a couple of days that were seriously cold. Maybe we got lucky, it hasn’t snowed at all, but the weather has been really good. Coming in winter however had one main advantage, front row seats to see everything. Our guide at the Terracotta Warriors said in summer the main pit is 10 people deep. Everywhere we went we saw infrastructure for large crowds, so we were glad to put up with some cold as a trade off for a better experience. 

Sometimes we felt so out of place as people just stare at you, here you really are the foreigners. Not many people speak English, even in high tourist areas. Their major tourist market is domestic, so they don’t see many westerners, but they were generally very accepting of us and very friendly towards us. China is full of people, they are everywhere, you cannot escape them. It was very dirty, noisy, smelly and chaotic but we loved it and will always remember what an amazing experience we had here.