crossing the river

Today it's D-Day for our trekking trip to Huangshan or the Yellow mountains, but before we leave, we still have a whole day for ourselves and we are planning to make the most of it.

Our bags are packed and stowed away behind the reception desk of the hotel, so that later on this evening, we can pick them up again. We are ready to cross the river and visit those tall skyscrapers we were gazing at since a few days.

When we arrive at the other side of the river Huangpu, we immediately get attacked with lots of sales people who want to sell excursions almost for free. In the beginning it looks very appealing, but looks can be deceiving and to make a long story short, we just ended up with buying the tickets ourselves at the entrance of the Pearl tower, the thing we wanted to do in the first place.

Inside the tower we once again noticed that we are not alone in this big city, we have to go up with an elevator to the first sphere and I am thanking the Lord that I am not claustrophobic. How do they do it, I don't know but I am sure we end up with more than 15 people in a small elevator. Only in China!

But it is worth all the hassle once you have seen all the views of this big city.

Even when we end up at the second sphere the views are still amazing and more special, they even have a glass walkway. Because of my fear of hights I can endure a lot, but nog walking on glass, not my thing at all, but Mingzhu and Tania seem to have the time of their lives and enjoy it very much!

When we have enough of all the views we get a bit hungry and decided to head for the super mall we saw earlier. It is a bit hard to find something to eat here but finally we find some Italian thing and the pasta was delicious, what more do we need.

We go back towards the Bund and end up taking the sightseeing tunnel. It looks like a runaway from a Disney theme park, but it does the job and in only 5 minutes we are back at the Bund. It seems that we can't get enough from walking on the Bund and we end up at the bridge where my brother and Mingzhu had their wedding pictures taking. From here you still have some nice views on the Pudong district.

In only a few hours we are leaving for the Yellow Mountains so we need to go back to the hotel and get our bags. But first we buy some bread in a store on Nanjing Road, just to be sure not to get too hungry during our trekking.

We arrive on time at the train station and we take place in the waiting area till our train arrives. Tania is using this time to update her blog, the rest of us are just looking at all the people and before we know it, it is time to leave.

Quickly we find our designated cabin fully equipped with 4 bunk beds or own soft sleeper cabin, like they call it here! Our little adventure can finally begin.

I must admit that sleeping in a "soft" sleeper isn't all that when the bed seems to be made out of concrete. But that is nothing compared to the window problem I had. I only sleep when it is completely dark and because of the fact that the train made several stops on the way, the light kept coming in resulting in the fact that I didn't sleep a wink. On the other hand, I saw a lot of the different train stations or should I say, of the platforms that is!

Once the sun has set, the views were getting better and better. Eventually even my "roommates" were getting awake and after a sturdy breakfast we were almost at our destination ... the small city of Tunxi.