Spring Festival 3: NJ to Shanghai

Before I get to Shanghai, I thought I would talk to you about central heating.  Exciting stuff I know but in China, the central heating system in all houses, schools and offices is actually controlled by the government.  Regardless of the weather conditions or current temperature, every year on November 15th it is turned on (cue smog) and then on March 15th it is turned off again.

On top of this it turns out that cities in southern China do not even have central heating systems.  In theory this is because the winters are a lot milder in the south.  All I can say is, it still gets cold.  Very very cold.  There were nights in hostels where we were wearing wooly hats to bed.

Anway, our next stop Shanghai (Shànghǎi 上海) was just a short bullet train ride from Nanjing.  Despite the cold, overcast and occasionally wet weather, we had a really nice few days just walking around and seeing what it had to offer.

 

 

After five months in a city that has very little in the form of entertainment, culture or tourism, it was very refreshing to visit museums, have a great choice of food, find bars that served decent drinks and most importantly, not be stared at when walking down the street!  In the French Concession area, there was almost as many foreigners as Chinese people.  This might not seem that amazing to you but it blew my mind. 

We were in the area to find the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre which we had read about in our Lonely Planet Guide.  It turned out to be located in the basement of an apartment block which was in the middle of nowhere.  Despite the strange location, they have a great collection of old Chinese propaganda posters from the last century on display.  Here's one of my favourites:

As a forward thinking city, Shanghai also gave us some glimpses of what the future might have in store for us.  Apparently multi-coloured dogs and 'urinals with a view' are where we are headed.

Shanghai is a fantastic city and has much too much to see and do in three days.  Hopefully I'll get to go back again before I head home in the summer.  Next up is a trip to the countryside and an attempt at climbing Mount Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain.