I returned to Taipei for one more evening before catching my flight the following morning, but not before seeing a beautiful person at the airport ❤️ Niuniu, see you in November!

We flew with the fantastic Juneyao airlines, who as far as domestic/short haul airlines in China go were fine; gave us the standard small cushion and standard meal, although I really enjoyed their random prohibitions on using certain items on the plane, the list including tape players and CD Walkmans!? My phone in flight mode was unacceptable but other phones were fine, iPods were fine, but don’t dare bring a tape player on board!

Upon landing, we followed signs for the 144 hour transit visa – took about 45 minutes due to the queue and only one person being on duty (kind of two but one guy looked new and his job was just to stamp the passports). For some reason he wanted the hostel’s phone number and seemed irritated that we hadn’t already provided it, even though the landing card didn’t have it as an option. All was successful after providing all the hostel details and copies of our onward flight, and we were given 5 days in China visa-free, for free!

So weird to be back in China – we caught the metro (no maglev this time!) into town, checked in and then went wandering around our hostel in Jing’An. Night 1, had a great meal in Sichuan Citizen, before hitting some bars – went to the Shanghai Brewery for craft beer and then onto the ridiculously hipster Liquid Laundry – felt far too scruffy to be there!

Day 2, had a jianbing (Chinese crepe pancake filled with a fried cracker and sauce) for breakfast and then went to see the old university to see how it changed. And good grief; Shanghai Jiao Tong University is actually nice now!! I envy the students who will start there in September – there’s a shop on campus now, new buildings, the international student building has been revamped, and even a Starbucks coming soon!

Some bits of Jing’an and Xuhui have changed but some bits really haven’t; my old apartment block for instance doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

It was oppressively hot preventing us from walking around outside for too long without a break, so we jumped on the metro and went to see the Bund. There’s now another massive building there! I’d literally never heard of it or heard anything about a new building being built, but it’s apparently the tallest building in China now, so that’s good?

Rounded off the evening with more beer drinking in bars, and Saturday rolled around all too quickly. The hostel was pretty horrific, mosquitoes in the room, and weird roommates who kept changing the aircon temperature to 28C; why even bother having it on in that case? We went to a shopping mall for lunch, and it was time for delicious Dim Sum, mainland style of course 😉 One of the dishes was advertised as ‘pleasantly surprised’ as I guess you can’t really advertise something as ‘unpleasantly surprised’? There was also a dog in a pram in this glitzy restaurant; we thought it was a baby at first but no, definitely a dog. Well done China.

We then walked through People’s Square and People’s Park and were gratified to see that the marriage fair is still going strong, with parents and grandparents advertising their eligible available offspring on bits of paper; height and income a must. It was then time for a triumphant return to the best chocolate café ever, Whisk! It is now called CH2 as it doesn’t just do chocolate now, but also cheese things, so CH x 2 I guess! So delicious – I had an iced chocolate drink and a chocolate mousse with chocolate cake bits throughout, and then got a chocolate headache.

Last night in Shanghai had come all too quickly! We went for Korean bbbqfood with unlimited sides and another beer or two… In the morning had baozi for breakfast before I went off to the airport to catch my flight to Japan! However, China wasn’t quite done with me yet…

On the metro, when I was 1 stop from the airport and pondering how much things had changed and how advanced everything had become… A 7 year old girl was helped by her mother to wee in the middle of the metro carriage. Her mum actually held her shorts leg to make it easier. No one said anything or did anything, although I moved as the pee was running down the carriage and I did NOT want it on my bag! Oh China. I’m kind of glad that not everything has changed… Otherwise it wouldn’t really be you!

Made it to the airport, Shangahi you’ve been fun but I must go on. Oh and what else hasn’t changed – China Southern Airlines gave me preserved radish as part of my inflight meal along with a sweet peanut product. No music allowed but preserved radish a must. Well done China.