day 11 - Shanghai Museum and Maglev ride - 27.08

First touristy thing we figured to explore was Shanghai Museum. It gave an overview of the Chinese culture by displaying ancient art forms of pottery, sculpture, metal works, furniture, lettter seals, coins, paintings and calligraphy. Museum was located at a nice central location so all good - got some nice walk in as well.

Second attraction of the day was Maglev ride :D OhoOOOO that was COOL!!! We happened to get there at the time when it was going on maximum speed of 430-431 km/h :D Yeah, we got a round ticket so we got to do it twice! It was wonderful. Things were going by so quickly that it was like fast forwarding life :D

Finally we are seeing some Starbucks coffees around here and I checked with my phone for wifi - it was there :D YAY since the internet at the hostel is very expensive. Hostel is otherwise nice, we booked 2 beds in a 7 person room. All seems clean and fine so far. Showers and toilets are at the other end of the hallway and there is even a possibility to do laundry - which we are using already :D Tomorrow we will have some clean shirts!

For dinner we met up with Kenny from CS. He is living in Shanghai for another 3 weeks because of work, he has been here for 5 months already. It is always so fascinating to hear things from locals - or at least from people who have lived here for a while. I could have easily carried on our discussion for hours and hours, but it was getting late and we have had a long day today so it was time to get back. We did enjoy a short walk by the river and watched the lit up skyscrapers from both sides of the river - so nice, big cities are incredible. Kenny was telling us of how they turn off the lights around 11 at night in order to save energy as there are huge energy shortages in Shanghai, but apparently the ordered commercials must still stay as those have been paid for. He also gave us great hints on what to see and how to get the most out of Shanghai, also some tips on travelling.

We will stay in Shanghai at least till Saturday evening if not till Sunday evening. We have been pondering about how to make it to Hong Kong - the cheapest is to take a train, but train ride is 25 hours :(( I don't think I'm able to take that. At the hostel, in our room, one of the girls is from Hong Kong so she was gladly giving out information about getting there. Tomorrow we are meeting with a local girl for dinner, also from CS, so hopefully we will get more ideas on how to move on to Hong Kong from here. Will see, maybe there is a way to break the 25h trip to smaller chunks - if not, then gotta survive the 25h train ride somehow.

Tomorrow we are planning on going to Shanghai Zoo. Now I need to go and get the laundry and then to bed :)