12 July 2018, Thursday

This morning, we checked out of our comfortable hutong house at 6:30am. Our Airbnb host picked us up in his spacious combo vehicle and sent us to Beijing South Railway Station. The morning traffic was heavy and it took us around 45 minutes to get there. On the whole, we enjoyed staying at the refurbished hutong house and we’ll definitely miss its spaciousness and our nightly chit chat sessions at the large communal living room.

We had already come to Beijing South Railway Station two days ago to pick up our train tickets so we were familiar with the layout of the station and had arrived in good time for our 9:00am departure. At 7:45am, we went to a Hong Kong dim sum restaurant for breakfast. The food was good but the menu was limited and the service was agonisingly slow.

At 8:30am, we proceeded to counter 13 to check in. I panicked a little when I saw how messy and crowded the entire area was. There was not enough space in the hall for an orderly queue to form so people just crowded around in a haphazard manner. It was quite chaotic.

Just then, we were approached by some guys wearing uniforms and red caps, offering porter service to the train carriage before the general queue opened. We decided to take it up and paid CNY 20 (S$4.17) each to engage their services. They stacked our luggage onto a trolley and entered through a side gate.

We tried to follow them through, but were stopped by a train attendant who told us that the porter service did not give us priority entry to board the train, which contradicted with what the porters told us, or what I thought they told us. The attendant explained that the side gate was actually meant for senior citizens and children only, and asked us to join the general queue. But we told the attendant that we were with the porters, who had already carted off our luggage and were nowhere to be seen.

After much confusion and explanation, the attendant let us through. Right about then, the general queue gates also opened up, so we entered at about the same time, but of course, the general queue was much longer. When we made our way to the carriage, we were relieved to find our luggage stacked neatly in the space behind our seats. My biggest fear was that our luggage would go missing, so I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Anyway, it was good to engage the porter service because the number of large storage spaces in the carriage was limited. The overhead racks were better suited for small luggage. We were travelling with large suitcases, so if we had joined the general queue, there might not be enough space for our suitcases by the time we got to the train.

The G1 high-speed train from Beijing to Shanghai Hongqiao was very sleek and modern. The seats were comfortable and spacious, and the train was very clean. The Fuxing Hao (复兴号) train would cover the 1,318km journey in just 4 hours 28 minutes. The G-category trains are among the world’s fastest with a top speed of 350km/h.

There are several train services departing Beijing each day, but the G1-18 services make fewer stops and average 4 hours 30 minutes for the journey, while the G101-160 services make more stops and hence incur a longer travelling time of up to 6 hours 24 minutes. So choose carefully when making the booking. I booked our tickets through Trip.com, and it cost CNY 583 (S$126.35) per person, inclusive of CNY 30 booking fee. Note that tickets can only be booked one month before the departure date.

At 8:59am, our train moved off from Beijing South Railway Station. The ride was super smooth and it glided effortlessly and noiselessly. The train was so fast that the scenery outside the window looked like it was on fast forward. I saw that we even hit a top speed of 352km/h. It was definitely the fastest train I had ever taken in my life.

Along the way, we made two very brief stops at Jinan West and Nanjing South railway stations, stopping for two and five minutes respectively. I got hungry after a while so I went to the small bistro at carriage 5 and bought a bento rice set with kungpow chicken. It tasted quite good.

After a zippy and comfortable journey, we arrived at Shanghai Hongqiao railway station at 1:28pm as scheduled. I had never taken a ride on the famous Shinkansen bullet train in Japan before so this was my first experience on a high-speed train. It was definitely a great way to travel and I highly recommend it.

The railway station was connected to the International airport of the same name. We made our way to the Metro station and bought single journey tickets for the train ride to our hotel. It cost only CNY 5 (S$1.04), which was really affordable. 14 stops and about half an hour later, we alighted at Yuyuan station and walked to our hotel, less than five minutes away, arriving at 2:45pm.

For our three-night stay here, I had booked SSAW Boutique Hotel Shanghai Bund (click here), located at 839 Renmin Road, Huangpu. I booked it through Agoda, and it cost about S$70 per person per night, inclusive of continental breakfast. The hotel room was very nice and big. Funnily enough, each of our rooms had slightly different layouts and features but they were all very spacious with large bathrooms.

We were soon to be joined by another two more members – Uncle R and Aunt V, long-time friends of my parents and friends of the rest of the family too. They flew in from Singapore this morning and had just landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 2:25pm. Pudong airport is further away from the city compared to Hongqiao airport.

While waiting for them to come to the hotel, we checked in to our rooms, dropped our luggage and headed out for a quick lunch. We found a small eatery nearby and settled on some shuijiao and xiaolongbao dumplings. After that, we went back to our rooms to settle down and rest.

Uncle R and Aunt V finally reached the hotel at about 4:50pm. After a round of happy greetings and hugs, we rested for a while more before heading out again at 6pm, this time as a complete party of nine.

From our hotel, we walked along Henan Road to Nanjing East Road (南京东路), about 20 minutes away on foot. Nanjing East Road is the shopping mecca of Shanghai. The pedestrian shopping street stretches for about 1km from Henan Road to Xizang Middle Road. Shopping malls, large department stores and flagship stores of international brands like Zara and Nike are all found here. We decided it was best to let everyone do their free-and-easy shopping and meet up again at 9pm in front of the huge Apple shop.

Just walking along the street, I could already feel that Shanghai was very different from Beijing. Where Beijing is more about culture, history and tradition, Shanghai is all about the future, modernity and commercialisation. Here, you will find the latest trends in fashion and technology. It is also reflected in the people here – they are also more well-dressed and cosmopolitan in outlook compared to their Beijing counterparts.

After meeting up again at 9pm, we walked along the vehicular stretch of Nanjing East Road towards the Bund, aka Waitan (外滩). This 1.5km long waterfront area is the most famous symbol of Shanghai and it is home to dozens of the most handsome colonial era buildings of various Western classical and modern architectural styles, including the legendary Peace Hotel (和平饭店), Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building and the Shanghai Custom House building.

Shanghai prospered between the 1860s and 1930s as the powerful centre of foreign establishment, with the British and Americans forming the Shanghai International Settlement and establishing a port here. The historical buildings along the Bund used to be banks and trading houses belonging to the British, Americans, French, Italians, Germans, Russians and more. In fact, Singapore used to have a similar Bund along our historic waterfront area near Collyer Quay, but sadly, most of the buildings are now gone.

If the Bund reflects Shanghai’s glorious past, then Pudong (浦东) across the Huangpu River (浦江) reflects Shanghai’s bright future. Pudong means “the east bank of the Huangpu River”. The area used to be predominantly farmland. It was only in 1993 that the Pudong New Area was created and earmarked as a special economic zone.

The rapid and drastic transformation of Pudong in less than 30 years is really quite stunning. The Pudong district is now the financial hub of China and the waterfront area is now home to landmark buildings like the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower (东方明珠塔) and three skyscrapers – the Shanghai Tower (632m), Shanghai World Financial Center (492m) and Jin Mao Tower (421m). The Shanghai Tower is currently the world’s second tallest building, after the Burj Khalifa.

Unsurprisingly, there was a huge crowd out on the Bund jostling to get a good spot for a photo opportunity. As I walked along the Bund, I thought about the famous Cantonese song 上海滩, sung by Francis Yip, which was the theme song of the 1980 Hong Kong TV series also called The Bund.

We enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the Bund and eventually made our way back to our hotel at around 10pm. And that brings us to the end of our first day in Shanghai, two more days to go!