TO SHANGHAI WITH LOVE

I BOW MY HEAD TO THE CHINESE

I bow my head to the Chinese….and this is the only way I can start this blog. 

In my youth, mid life and more recent impression of China was that of a ‘closed’ state, with limited access to the outside world.  I had read and heard about Mao, the Communist party, Tiananmen Square protests, and wondered in awe about the great wall, the Forbidden City, and the terracotta warriors, but always with fascination and a great desire to visit this great country.   The desire was even greater when few months back I went to watch the latest Bond flick ‘Skyfall’ and the opening scene of Shanghai had me gaping in wonder.  So Shanghai was immediately added to my bucket list.

As luck would have had it, when the opportunity to visit Shanghai and Ningbo on a business trip came up, I grabbed it with both hands and on 25^th March 2013, left for this wonderful country along with my Kuwaiti colleague, Fahad.

Visas

Securing a visa to China is relatively easy and I got mine in 3 days.  The consulate is located in Yarmouk (Block 5, St 3) and open from 9:00am to 12:000 and again from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.  The visa application form is available on line http://kw.chineseembassy.org/eng/  and easy to fill.  For the first time visitor, the visa is valid for a single entry and up to 3 months.  However, if you are traveling a second time, you can apply for the multiple entries ‘1 year visa’ at a slightly higher fee.

Flights to Shanghai

Various airline choices are available from Kuwait, but we decided to stick to Emirates as they had the most convenient flight schedules and connections.   We had also decided to spend a day in Hong Kong on our return journey and Emirates Airlines had the perfect connections without having to spend too much time in transit at Dubai airport.

Shanghai – a few thoughts and tidbits  

The time difference between Kuwait and Shanghai is + 5 hours, so after a pleasant journey by the Emirates Boeing 777ER, we landed at Shanghai’s huge airport.  I wouldn’t say it’s fancy like Dubai, but it’s practical.  The people at immigration were stern but efficient and there were little butterflies inside my stomach, but after the usual questions of ‘Why are you visiting China’ ‘Where are you staying’ and ‘How long will you be staying’ we exited through custom without a hitch although my colleague had to open his hand bag and part with the oranges, apples and bananas his little daughter had packed in his hand bag without his knowledge, assuming her dad would face great difficulty for food in China.

Beautiful streets of Shanghai

The Bund in the evening

Our trading partners had arranged a private ‘black’ taxi for us and the Chinese driver who picked us up hardly spoke a word of English.  This is the first thing that hits you about China, literally nobody speaks English... Luckily for us, our business partner provided us with one of their staff, Mr. Pi who acted as our guide and translator during the few days we spent in Shanghai.  Pi was such a pleasant company, but more importantly,  he filled us in on a lot of Chinese culture and their way of life and at the same time was very inquisitive to know more about the Muslim way of life, how rich the Arabs are,  etc etc.. 

When I told him that I was Indian, he proudly told me that he has  watched quite a few Indian films and his favorite being ‘Three Idiots’.  He said most Chinese loved Sharman Joshi’s role as the poor boy studying to get his family out of poverty.

Hotels in Shanghai range from expensive to cheap and on the recommendations of our contacts in China; we decided to stay at the 4 star ‘Royal Court Hotel’ www.royalcourthotel.com.cn which is situated on the Huaihai Road and close to the main shopping and commercial areas.  When we arrived at the hotel, I was quite disappointed as it looked small and had a tiny reception area. So when I told the receptionist that I would prefer to see the room before paying the advance, he very confidently blurted out ‘You like room sir’ ,  something about the way he said it gave me the confidence to skip checking out the room and after the usual check-in formalities, we took the lift to our rooms on the 6^th floor.

Imagine my surprise to find that our rooms were actually service apartment style rooms with fantastic wooden Chinese style décor, central heating and extremely large.  The room also had a kitchen area, office desk and a computer, sitting room area and an inviting bed…and all this for USD.85/- Although the hotel looks tiny on the outside and is hidden from the main road, I would recommend it to anyone traveling to Shanghai with a moderate budget. 

The Bund at night

End March, Shanghai was cold.  Although the temperature hovered around 12 degrees centigrade during the afternoon, it went down below 7 degrees late evenings.  Our first day in Shanghai was spent visiting the popular landmarks like the Yuyuan Garden which is a famous garden located in the heart of Shanghai.  The garden features great rocks, various kinds of trees, bamboo, Jade rock, and even a goldfish pond.  There is an admission fee to enter this garden.  We also visited the ‘Bund’ which is actually a marina with really fancy looking buildings on either side of the Huanpu River.  This is a must visit place as it will give you an idea of the great progress China has made.

Yuyuan Garden

Shanghai is a very clean city and everything is orderly.  For transportation, most people use the subway or the bus.  Taxis are also available and quite a few of the taxis have women drivers.  We were fortunate to use the subway, and I must say what is so amazing is that  a train arrives every two minutes and people get in and out such a orderly manner that it was embarrassingly too nice.  Even though hundreds of thousands of Chinese use the subway daily to commute to work, everything is done is systematically. 

Early the next morning we took the fast train to Ningbo (Industrial province located about 3 hours away by train) and this was one amazing journey I will never forget.  When we arrived at the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, it looked more like an airport and I believe it is the largest railway station in Asia.  It looked every bit that and just 10 minutes before departure, we had to go to the boarding gate (just like an aircraft), and the train arrived and left exactly on time.  The train we took was a fast one (touching 200 km per hour), although I understand there are faster trains, but my Kuwaiti colleague who had never traveled long distance by train before was a little concerned and so we decided to use the slower one.  On board, beer, cold drinks, snacks and food is served just like in the aircraft (at a charge of course) by pretty hostesses and the journey was extremely pleased.  We passed some amazing countryside dotted with storied farm houses, which our Chinese friend explained belonged to farming clans.  There may be poor people in China, but it never shows and seeing baggers in the streets slums, etc is out of the question.

Using the sub-way

At the train Station

On our way to Ningbo - beautiful country side

In China nobody wastes electricity.  People try and refrain from using lights when not required and many houses we noticed have large windows to ensure enough sunlight enters the house during the day.  When my friend wanted to exchange money at the bank, we found that one of the door was permanently closed with a note saying, use other door to save energy.  This we noticed in quite a few places. That along with the solar heaters on every roof top were some of the energy saving ideas we noticed in Shanghai.

Everyone has one - solar heating
One of the things I like to do when I travel overseas is try the local cuisine and in Shanghai we had the opportunity to try real authentic Chinese food.  Food is not cheap especially in the more fancy restaurants and we did try Chinese, Indian, and Turkesh restaurants.  I have written a separate blog on our bad experience at the Tandoor Restaurant and you can check it out in this blog site.

Nice authentic Chinese food

While stepping into our China Eastern Airline onwards to Hong Kong, I could not but help thinking how much progress this country had made and wondered if our own Country (India) could ever emulate them.  I wonder!!!!

Julio Cardoso

Kuwait