Birthday Celebrations Chinese Style

Chinese beer is very weak. At 3.1%, it takes a few to have any effect on us. But this also means it takes a lot to get any sort of a hangover, a fact we were grateful for as we groggily arose the morning after our card-playing shenanigans the previous night. I was just about able for the Shanghai Museum, which was excellent, taking me most of the day to explore (John and Gearoid were waiting for me outside for over an hour).

Seeing as it was close by, we decided to go for a stroll down the French concession, with examples of colonial architecture that would become a familiar sight in Vietnam and Laos. It was mostly shops, that were well out of our price range, so we found a cheap restaurant and returned to the hostel for a (relatively) quiet night in preparation for Gearoid’s birthday the following day.



I slept in extra-late the next day, and made my way downstairs to find that the birthday celebrations had already begun without me. John and Gearoid, along with Kaisa (Finnish) and Fred (German) (you’ll be hearing those names a lot on this blog), were playing bullshit again. I (Irish) joined, then Dan and Jonas joined (Aussies), then Risto (Finnish) joined, then Leanne (English) joined. All these people just happened to be staying in the hostel.

A marathon bullshit session ensued. The only break we had was for dinner at a nearby restaurant - the nine of us were given a room to ourselves with a round table. Whether that was to protect the other diners or not is open to debate. The scene of grown men crying after the chili-eating contest suggests it was the right decision (to this day my mouth has never experienced anything that hot). Back to the hostel we stumbled for more card/drink shenanigans. We strictly adhered to the rules of the game, so you can imagine what state the birthday boy was in. He wanted to stay there for the night, but we were having none of it. We were gonna go out and celebrate, Chinese style.

We had seen signs for KTV absolutely everywhere in China. We eventually learned that it’s karaoke, and is China’s national pastime. What better way to make Gearoid’s birthday special for him than forcing him up in front of a small crowd and making him sing?

Well, it wasn’t quite like that. We arrived at the KTV building thinking it was a four-star hotel. I wondered into the lobby area, and confirmed that it was our intended destination. Somehow it took ten minutes of confused interchanges between staff in Chinese and celebrators in drunken English to make progress past the lobby. A porter took us into a lift, and we were brought to the fourth floor, where I was amazed to see a maze of halls lined with doorways, behind each one a room with the sound of unpleasant vocal warbling coming from within.



I think it was this small level of privacy (and lots and lots of alcohol) that lowered everyone’s level of inhibition - no-one held back on the singing front. There were solos, duets, and whole choirs. I’m sure we were the loudest in the whole building. We were also quite possibly the last to leave - dawn had already come and gone when we re-emerged out into the Shanghai street.



I believe it was good to experience this important aspect of Chinese culture. Without doubt, one of the best nights out of the whole trip. Gearoid’s birthday next year has a lot to live up to.

Sights, Beer and Bullshit

With a huge number of things to see, we decided to start our first day proper in Shanghai with the tallest: the Shanghai World Financial Centre. Like Beijing, Shanghai’s metro system, running above and below ground, is extremely efficient and easy to use (save for a couple of minor problems with it’s e-card ticket system). We breezed over to Pudong New Area, the area of the city with the tallest skyscrapers, in no time.



Ascending the stairs leading out of the metro station, the collection of tallest skyscrapers slowly came into view, and my jaw dropped. Having never been to New York or anywhere else with buildings near this height, this was a new sensation for my eyes. I felt a child-like excitement surge inside me, and spent close to two minutes just standing in one spot skyscraper-gazing.



To get to the top-floor observation deck of the SWFC was expensive, but worth it. This really was China showing off it’s financial might, with an impressive lights/special effects show preceding the incredibly fast ascent up to the 97th floor (the lift ascends at 8m per second). Once there, the extra money we paid meant we could ascend three stories higher. The views from the top were outstanding. If you visit the SWFC and you’ve never been to Japan (I haven’t, yet), then go down to the food court in the basement and check out the toilets, an experience in itself.



It took a bit of convincing, but I persuaded John and Gearoid that the best way to get across the river to the Bund district on the other side was to take the famously bad Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. Passengers are herded onto a moving platform, which slowly proceeds under the river through a barrage of cheap light effects and a soundtrack straight from “BBC Sound Effects Volume 3“. Like a Steven Seagal film, it was so bad it was hilarious, at least I thought so. John and Gearoid still haven’t forgiven me though.



The Bund itself in many parts looks more like a street in New York than China. With neoclassical reminders of Shanghai’s past on one side, and the ultra-modern Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River on the other, walking down the Bund was, for me, another experience unique to China that I enjoyed immensely.



If I thought it all looked impressive during the day, after dusk the views really blew my socks off. We went for a stroll down the enormous East Nanjing Road, the biggest capitalist/shopping street in the city, and by the time we returned to the Bund for a boat tour on the river, the Pudong skyline had transformed into a neon wonderment, an iconic sight and rightly so.

A long day’s sightseeing earned a few drinks that night, the after-effects of which resulted in a long lie-in the next morning. We got so comfortable in the hostel bar that this ended up being the second day spent entirely within it‘s borders.



With weary eyes, we were nearly ready to retire to our dorm room when, unwittingly, one of the defining moments of our trip occurred. A Finnish girl came over and asked us if we wanted to join in a game of cards. We agreed, joining a motley crew of travellers at the table, and learned the skills of a drinking/card game that would come to define a significant part of our time in China. The name of the game? Bullshit.

Heads Up

Being the largest city, and also arguably the most happening spot in the country, Shanghai was the main draw of the eastern side of China. Because of it’s history (the small fishing town that existed here was aggrandized into a city by the British, French and other foreign powers), it has a mix of architecture and an atmosphere that’s different to any other city in China.

Before entering the Shanghai metropolis, we spent a couple of uneventful days in Suzhou - one of the most traditionally Chinese looking (in the centre) cities in China, full of gardens and ancient buildings. Emerging from Shanghai’s northern train station, the scene presented to us was as big a contrast to that as you can get in this country. My neck took the first of many strains as I looked up in awe at the size of the skyscrapers.



The size of the city is apparent from the amount of pages taken up by maps in Lonely Planet - most places have a single page - Shanghai has nine. Just picking a region to base ourselves in was a big task. With help from the invaluable (and Irish) hostelworld.com, we picked a hostel that turned out to be arguably the best accommodation of the entire trip.

The communal/bar area was so nice that we didn’t even manage to make it outside the hostel front door on the day we arrived (though the rain outside played a part in that too). It wouldn’t be the first day spent exclusively in the hostel.