Festive Season Travelogue

I’m posting this from Delifrance in IT Funal Mall in Singapore.

I’m writing this in our hotel room on December 23rd at 3.50 in the morning, and surprisingly, I’ve slept soundly for the past seven hours. Hopefully the jetlag doesn’t us in its full force later during this trip, as currently we seem to get accustomed to the time difference quite okay.

I left our apartment in Helsinki on Tuesday, December 21st and took 13.55 bus to city centre to catch 14.25 bus to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Our flight was leaving at 17.10, so there should be plenty of time. Usually the trip from Lauttasaari to Helsinki centre takes 15 minutes or less. This time something got haywired in the traffic and I had to jump off the bus one stop before to best stop and run to the other bus. I just made it and met Sanna, who had come directly from work.

The airport wasn’t that bad that I was fearing for. The queues were short and they moved swiftly — something that you’ve come to appreciate in Finland. Sometimes the airport is so shock full of people that it takes an hour to get the boarding pass, a few more minutes to go through security (somehow, this is never stuck) and another half an hour to get to the non-Schengen area. This time all these formalities took less than fifteen minutes.

We spent the extra time shopping. Usually I don’t find much anything from the airports, but now I bought three new books. The Schengen area of the airport (EU internal flights for you non-EU readers) was surprisingly packed, so we got our passports checked and strolled in the newly furnished non-Schengen area. There were a few new shops, Readers for books, Stockmann for fashion and CAPI for electronics, and time was spent nicely in these.

The boarding was also hassle-free and we were able to reach our seats without struggles. They were next to the restrooms, so we had nobody in front of us and thus there were enough of space for feet. This also meant that I couldn’t stowe our suitcase under the seat in front of us. Fortunately it fit okay to the overhead compartment, as it contained all our fragile items and otherwise it would have ended up to the cargo space.

The flight took nine hours, we got two bad meals and tried to nap off as good as we could. I was able to sleep something like two hours, so we were not exactly fresh when we arrived in Shanghai.

The Shanghai airport is a complex serie of big halls. The ceilings are high and the walls are far and between. Passengers of three jumbojets didn’t fill one corner of the package hall properly. The passport checking was surprisingly swift. The officer took a good look at the passports and the visa.

We took the maglev train from the airport to the city centre. The train station was at least half a kilometer from the arrival hall, but once we got there, everything was easy and organised. There is a lot of service people in China; we were ushered to the correct train by three ladies in uniforms.

The maglev trip was nice experience. The train somehow lifted off and started to accelerate. The top velocity was over 430 km/h, but the fun lasted only a minute or so and the train had to decelerate. The 30 km trip took seven minutes. This is the fastest ground speed that I have experienced in my life. Took pictures.

Our hotel was — and still is — five kilometers from the maglev station. I had prepared for the taxi trip and printed the hotel name and address in Chinese. I have bad experiences with Chinese taxi drivers from Taipei, and this precaution was needed as the driver couldn’t say a word in English. The trip took almost fifteen minutes and costed 20 RMB, less than two euros.

The hotel was excellent, check out a separate review, and we got our room already at 9.45 in the morning. We dosed for an hour or so and then started to explore the city.

The weather was horrible: It was raining cats and dogs and there were pools of rainwater everywhere we went. The pedestrian areas are paved with tiles that are extremely slippery when wet. It was like walking on ice.

The metro station was hidden in a construction site. There must be more entrances than the one that we found, but they are hidden well. The metro was clean, modern, not too packed and extremely cheap. One trip costed 20 cents. The trains are frequent and there are big displays to inform when the next train is coming. The time is measured with seconds, not with minutes as in most places. And it is somewhat exact.

We got out in People’s Square to visit Shanghai Art Museum (check separate review) and do some semi-serious shopping on Nanjing road. First, we went to Taco Bell Grande that turned out to be a grande mistake, check a separate review.

Orientation in Chinese cities is an adventure itself. The street signs are in both Chinese and English, but sometimes the English translation / translitteration is different in the signs and in the map. Sometimes, especially in the metro stations, there is no English signs at all. We had two maps, one tourist map from the hotel and other from Lonely Planet. It took some effort in the restaurant to figure out where we were and how to get to the museum, as the metro station was put into different locations on the maps.

After we got hold of our location, finding the museum was easy. The exhibition was a crowded and swift experience and we were out in the rain in no time.

From the museum we walked along the People’s Square to Nanjing Road, one of the main shopping streets in Shanghai. The road is only for pedestrians and it’s full of shops and department stores. We checked a few shops, a couple of reviews are coming later. Our feet were already killing us, so we took metro to Pudong and visited Grand Hyatt to make a table reservation for a dinner on 56th floor.

Finding the hotel wasn’t that easy. I had to compare the Chinese name of the tower with signs in the metro station to find the correct exit, and after we got on the ground, there were no signs whatsoever pointing to the hotel. This time I had to compare the drawing in the map with the buildings. Fortunately we guessed correctly and finally found the correct entrance for the hotel. It’s located at the top of a office tower and two first entrances were for the offices only.

At the hotel, we took elevator to 54th floor only to found out that the reservation desk along the menus is located at the ground floor. The menu looked good and the prices were tolerable, so we got a table with a view for the next Wednesday.

We took a taxi from hotel to hotel, paid less than one euro this time. I really love the transportation expenses here…

After lounging a couple of hours, writing reviews, packing and other stuff, we ventured out for a small dinner and buy some groceries. There were no restaurants in sight, but we bravely walked near the metro station in pounding rain and frantically looked for a restaurant. We found a big supermarket and a KFC. There were a Chinese fast food restaurant, too, and several people selling food on the streets. Finally, we ended up in a small joint near the supermarket.

The staff couldn’t speak a word in English and I had absolutely no clue about the dishes. Spring rolls and some dumplings looked good, and I got them ordered by pointing other customers eating them. The food arrived fast and it was okay. Not that good that I was hoping for, based on my experiences in Singapore, but definetely not bad. The dumplings had some sort of meat inside, Sanna was half-jokingly pondering whether it’s dog, but finally we deciced that it’d be pork.

After the meal we searched for some Western products in the supermarket for breakfast and left back to the hotel. The selection in the supermarket was astounding. I’ve never seen that much of fruits, herbs, fish and other stuff that I don’t have any knowledge about. Fortunately I don’t have to cook here.

At the hotel, we simply went to bed and slept soundly until I woke up to write this piece.

Next, we are going to check out and take a taxi to the airport and fly to Singapore. I’ll write more there.