Day 19. Lianyungang to Shanghai
One of the parks just next to two large roundabouts was filled with people practicing tai-chi, another group danced to classical tunes reminiscent of the fifties.
So the decision is made, we try to get to Shanghai as soon as
possible. As luck would have it, we were fortunate to have
found a bus that gets under way at 10 am this morning. With a
few hours to spare we rode around the streets trying to soak up
some more of the life here.
[A bit of a character]
One of the parks just next to two large roundabouts was filled
with people practicing tai-chi, another group danced to classical
tunes reminiscent of the fifties. The majority of
participants seemed to be of retirement age, Dave and Bill went
over to investigate further and in the process caused a bit of a
commotion.
[Lianyungang Roundabouts - (Traffic Circle if you're South
African)]
We said our goodbyes and rode on over to the bus terminal, where
after purchasing tickets for Shanghai we broke the bikes into
pieces and placed them in the hold. This trip was rather
uneventful and very much unwanted; however there was no other way
of getting to Shanghai on time and still have some time to see the
city.
[Talking with the dancers]
The day was rather pathetic, and as we neared Shanghai, dark
clouds could be seen to stretch in all directions subduing our
first cityscape experience.
The bus terminal was under construction and our bus was unloaded
rather quickly with our bikes being stranded in the middle of a
busy driveway with nowhere safe to put them together. We
dragged our things off the busy street and took to work.
First things first, we need to figure out where to stay for the
night - the sun is starting to set and the clouds as well as the
rain won't make things easier on us. Our wet weather gear was
going to come in handy and after flicking through the Lonely Planet
and not finding anything of interest, we decided to ride towards
the main canal along Nansuzhou Rd.
[Raining in Shanghai]
It didn't take too long before we found ourselves a small hotel
in relative proximity of everything we wanted to see. We went
out on the town to grab something to eat and get our bearings, but
the dreary weather prevented us exploring farther than a 1km
radius, and after the bus ride, the only thing we really wanted to
do was sleep.