Bye bye Beijing
Mat and I had a bit of a lie in today. When we did get up, we didn’t mess around. We headed out for some steamed breakfast, and to withdraw some more cash. Finding ATMs is hardly ever simple in China, unless you stumble upon them by chance. We were taking a train to Shanghai today. Both of us were looking forward to it. In terms of fame, it’s on par, if not more famous, than Beijing. It was almost certainly going to be a great sightseeing experience.
Our next country is going to be Vietnam. We already booked a flight from Guangzhou to Ho Chi Minh City. Within the last couple of days, we managed to organise our approval letter, which is required when landing in Vietnam. We did this online using this website. It costs around £15-£20 per application and we got the approval letter within a few hours. The next challenge was to print them off. We weren’t sure if they’d accept a phone version, so thought it best to get them printed. Luckily, just down the road from us was a printing shop. They’re pretty small shops and was just one person, a PC and a load of huge printers. All we had to do was email them the document and they printed it out for us, dead simple. One less thing to worry about.
Frustrating ticket pick up
After a short bus ride back to the train station, we checked into the train and got our tickets. However, this was only after countless push ins at the front. Both of us were burning inside, and throwing daggers at people from our eyes. Eventually, however, we got to the front and easily picked our tickets up. We were all set for the train to Shanghai. I quite enjoy the experience of travelling, whether by bus or train. You get to just switch off and relax for a moment.
The train to Shanghai took around 5 hours, not bad considering it’s around 900 miles! The kid that sat next to me shared his pomegranate (seeds) with us. Both of us were pretty thankful, it was actually my first time trying it, pretty good! When we arrived in Shanghai, we had to take the metro to get to our hostel. This was a first for us, we’d been putting it off because we thought it’d be dead complicated. In reality, it was a pretty simple and easy process. Off the train to Shanghai, on the metro to the hostel!
Tip!
I don’t know if it’s just Shanghai, but the problem we had was that we only had ¥20 notes or above. It turns out that the ticket dispenser for the metro only accepts coins or small notes. Luckily, there was a guy behind us who swapped some coins for our notes.
Hostel from hell
After our first journey on the metro, we hopped off near our hostel. We had a 15-minute walk or so to our hostel. It was a tad troublesome to find, especially in the dark, but luckily I saw a small sign. So we checked in and got showed to our room. What a disappointment. I guess we got what we paid for…which was basically nothing. The room was small, cramped, messy, dirty, and god knows what else. What was worse, was the fact the door didn’t shut, never mind lock! Any old Tom, Dick, or Harry (probably not in this neighbourhood mind you) could waltz in off the street and help themselves to our stuff.
After this huge disaster, we dumped our stuff and got out as soon as possible. We decided to take a walk towards the busy part of the city. As we walked, we ended up exploring some sort of market complex, it looked very nice. I’m sure we’ll come here in the tomorrow to check it out in daylight. Most places were shutting up shop for the night, but we were pretty hungry. From out the corner of my eye, my tireless hero saved me again. The holy Golden Arches. Need I say more?
Sleeping bags at the ready
After ending the day on a delicious meal, we trudged back to the hostel. We had to use our sleeping bags, neither of us wanted to touch these bed sheets. It was pretty humid, so it was going to be one sweaty night. The mosquitoes seemed to be out in force tonight too. Just what we needed!
The hostel we stayed in was called the Shanghai Old West Gate Hostel. The dorm room we got was shocking but the other rooms may be nicer.
