I've written before about how important visual memories are to me, but that doesn't mean that these all have to be photographed. I try wherever I am to take as many photos as I possibly can, and sometimes I come back home with a completely full memory card. It's incredible some days that I can literally do one, or maybe two things but come back having taken over a hundred photos (it's happened a few times) and it's going to give me some interesting problems when I go through and decide which ones I have to print out.
I don't know exactly how many photos I took during my year in Korea, but I'd like to think somewhere north of 1000 and after I'd returned to England I printed every single one out and put them in several photo albums which I have sitting in my room. This time around I think I'll have taken close to 5000 which is going to keep one of the supermarkets very busy when I take them to get printed out - obviously I'm going to be do them in batches at a time, but I have no idea how long it will take me to file them away this time around.
I've been fortunate enough to go to a number of notable buildings since I've been travelling, but I think that a lot of my photos have either been of landscapes or scenery which capture more of what I have been witnessing rather than a single structure. With the rate at which I take pictures I think there are certainly more candidates to come for what will end up being my favourite picture, and each day I go out knowing that day might be when I add another memorable image to the collection....
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Even though it had been busy, I'd enjoyed myself, and filling the day helps to give me a better experience of the places I am visiting - especially here where I have only got two full days to really explore the city and see it properly before leaving. Not that timings make a difference because I was in Busan for five days and I think I still made sure that my itinerary was just as full each day!
I'm not sure why but I always felt that the cities which were post-Laos would provide me with more things to do - whether that was because there would be better public transport links or just because there are things which stay open until later, I'm not sure. Obviously I have no problems with being busier each day, but it does mean that I often need to remind myself that doing more things throughout the day can take its toll on my body which is probably suffering quite a lot due to the the amount of walking / heat / inability to always get food when I need it.
Having explored the exterior of the city yesterday, I was planning to spend my time within the bounds of Shanghai's humongus city centre today as I made plans for what to do and where to go. Shanghai's skyline is amongst the most impressive in the world and I wanted to spend time today both looking at it from a distance, and also being in the middle of it.
China's second largest city, like many which I seem to have visited recently, is separated by a river, in this case the Hangpou which runs directly through the middle of the central business district. My aim was to start at one end and make it all the way to the river, before going across it and then walking down The Bund on the other side before spending some time admiring the impressive landscape under the bright lights.
There are plenty of stops on the metro which could help me get in and around the centre of Shanghai, but it took some careful studying of the map to decide which was the best way to try and cover as much ground as possible.
I don't think I have mentioned it in any of my previous blogs but even though I am a little distance outside of the city, each journey which I take on the metro usually gives me a great view of the city's tallest buildings, and on my travels to and from the airport, and also when I was going from my hotel to the zoo and then back from the F1 circuit I have been through plenty of the central stations, and decided it would be best to go from a station called Century Park which will mean that I would walk down a straight road which took me into the heart of the city.
It was another beautiful and sunny day in Shanghai and arriving at Century Park it was relatively busy as there were lots of people queuing up to get into the charming open space that is Century Park itself. The quickest route to get to where I needed to be would have been to go through the park itself, but I really didn't feel like waiting in a queue and spending some money just so that I could save myself fifteen or twenty minutes of time. It was just as easy for me to walk around the outside of the park (as I was still able to get a view inside anyway) and then walk around to the long street called Century Avenue which would guide me to the right place.
After navigating my way around the exterior of the park and in the right direction I managed to find Century Avenue which had an already impressive view of the cityscape at its entrance.
Shanghai is known to be one of the world's most vertical cities and even almost instantly I could see where it gets its reputation from:
I realised from looking at the map that it was going to be a reasonably long walk to get from the where I took this picture to the riverside where I was intending to end up, but I was quite enjoying being in the middle of the city and was intrigued by what I would find.
It was quite difficult to take everything that I was seeing in fairness, but there were some buildings which stood out pretty well above the rest:
The one which looks a bit like a cheese grater is the Shanghai World Financial Centre and the other one in view is the Jin Mao Tower, and looking at the map I could see that they were not far from the riverbank so I continued walking towards them whilst taking in everything I was seeing:
As everything in Shanghai seems so tall, I'd often lose the two buildings I was aiming for, behind other things, but they would always return and then very shortly they were in full view as a path towards them opened up:
I was not also starting to get a view of the Oriental Pearl Tower which another famous building on the Shanghai skyline:
Just up ahead was something of a viewing platform which allowed me to look at everything around me with a much clearer view:
From here you could see the water, and I walked around the outside of the Oriental Pearl in order to get to what I'd seen on the map which was a board-walk which allowed you to look over to the other side of the river. I walked down the path a little and then there was a huge space which I can imagine gets very crowded in summer which gave me a perfect view out over the water which gleamed in the sunlight:
Having gone as far as I was going to without turning into Michael Phelps I walked back towards the metro station and caught the Line Two train out to East Nanjing Road which was on the opposite side of the river, and allowed me to walk from the opposite direction towards the otherside of the river. It was at this moment that I really started to feel like I was in downtown Shanghai; what made it better was that some of the lights had started to come on and make the buildings look even more impressive.
I crossed over a main road and headed into a pedestrian only area of the city which led onto The Bund. It was very busy with people, there were shops everywhere and almost at every turn there was something exciting to see. It looked like this was going to continue on forever but eventually I got to The Bund itself which is more classical architecture including some very fancy hotels:
Just up ahead I could see that it was very busy as people headed across the road to the riverbank. I'd read on several websites that you needed to get to the river early in order to see the lights at sunset, and that prediction did seem to be entirely correct as in sections there were people a row or so deep attempting to take pictures. I walked along until I manufactured a gap and then proceeded to start snapping away at what seemed to be the perfect moment as the sun almost entirely disappeared from the sky:
I hung around there for probably thirty minutes or so, and in that time my view proceeded to get better and better:
There was beginning to be a bit of a chill in the area as boats went up and down the river and people came along to snap pictures of what was a truly magnificent sight.
Nightfall had completely set in now, and it was time for me to journey back towards my hotel, but I managed to get a view of the scene as I was leaving:
I hadn't really noticed on my walk down to the river that there was a metro station just before there so I got on board and plotted a route back to my hotel which took about thirty or so minutes. The metro at that time was exceptionally busy and in order to get off at Dabiashu I pretty much had to tread on someone's heels who was also getting off in order to fight through the people who were impatiently getting on board.
It had been an enjoyable last evening in Shanghai, and I'm glad I'd got to witness the spectacular sight of the lights reflecting off the water. It had been an interesting contrast being in the real city centre area today, and there was a marked difference from where I'm staying. Even though it has only been a short stay, I feel like I accomplished quite a bit in my time in China, and I hope that there will be a part two elsewhere in the country to come at a later date!
Skyscraper
Sam Bailey (2013)
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