Suzhou and Shanghai

Master of Nets Garden

We flew from Guilin to Shanghai, arriving at Pudong, the main airport about 20 miles east of the city, then transferred by coach to Suzhou which is over 60 miles to the west of Shanghai, passing almost entirely through built-up areas with very little countryside to be seen. In Suzhou we stayed at the Holiday Inn which turned out to be probably the most unimpressive hotel we had seen on the whole trip. Suzhou has a population of about 4 million, which makes it a small city by Chinese standards. It's famous mainly for its canals and a number of stylised traditional Chinese gardens, so it was no surprise that we spent our day there visiting two of these gardens and going for a boat trip on the canals. The "Master of the Nets Garden" was probably the highlight, a beautiful garden with typical features of a Chinese garden and examples of period room settings. It was very peaceful and on a relatively small scale. It is said to be the inspiration for the well-known "Willow Pattern". It was quite busy as it turned out to be a public holiday, but not nearly as busy as the much bigger "Humble Administrator's Garden", which we visited in the afternoon. In between we cruised on the Grand Canal and explored some of the much narrower canals through the old city.

Shanghai by day --

--and by night

In the late afternoon we were back on the bus heading into Shanghai for the last two days of our tour. The Rendezvous Merry Hotel here was top class and our view from the 17th floor was spectacular. Shanghai is a megacity of 23 million people. It's also very much a world city, with a dramatically modern financial centre full of skyscrapers and elevated highways. We had a great couple of days bargaining in the Yuan Bazaar, relaxing in the gardens, strolling along the Bund to see the views across the river, and admiring the shikumen traditional buildings in the former French quarter. We travelled to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao tower by express lift, from where we could look across to the Shanghai Tower, still under construction but already listed as the world's second tallest building. On the other side was the Shanghai World Financial Centre, better known as the Bottle Opener, which was until recently the world's tallest. We travelled on the Maglev, the fastest train in the world, with a top speed of 431 km/h, 30.5 km in under 7 1/2 minutes. But the most memorable part of our time in Shanghai was another boat trip. We embarked on the river in the evening to see the magnificent sight of the Shanghai skyline by night. Unforgettable.

Nanjing Road

On our last evening we again ate together but the occasion this time was enlivened by an awards presentation masterminded by Ivor. Most people seemed to receive an award for something or other, to much hilarity. Next day most of the group were up early to catch flights back to UK or on to Hong Kong, but we had an extra day as we were booked on an overnight flight back to Edinburgh via Amsterdam. We used it to revisit the main areas in downtown Shanghai, not forgetting Nanjing Road, the main shopping precinct. What an amazing city! What an amazing country!