10/8/25
Sleeper trains are a fantastic form of transportation. Travelling while sleeping in a bed kills at least two birds with one stone. The pleasure of doing so without remortgaging your house, or burning the planet down, for a plane ticket is to be treasured. This could be achieved even more fluidly in other countries around the world. No one needs to hand over their passport every 5 seconds as in China.
No one snored and so we slept beautifully. Spending a couple of hours on the train in the morning light, cutting through some very boring terrain, we stopped twice before arriving in Shanghai at 9:27am. Only afterwards did we discover that the “boring terrain” was below the longest bridge in the world. A viaduct that measured 102 miles. Booking for the Shanghai Planetarium opened at 9:30am. Hurriedly opening the damned WeChat app, then scrambling to get one of the 1900 tickets, we failed miserably and they were all gone by 9:32am.
Shanghai was even hotter than Beijing. An uncomfortable 38C. Of course, not being allowed to mix with departing passengers in the concourse, we were pushed into the square outside. Straightaway, we took the metro to Peoples Square. A confusing rabbit warren of 20 exits and minimal signposts greeted us. Daring to attempt to cross the road to the other side of the square led to being told off by the omnipresent police. Hard not to wonder if the squares name should be changed.
Gaining access to Shanghai Museum was another difficulty. WeChat reservations were booked up a week or more in advance. Reddit gave us a trick. Booking the temporary Egyptian exhibition on trip.com gave full access to the permanent exhibits too. A mere £15 each. Bit galling considering that Chinese people were paying nothing. Even more galling was getting inside, and discovering that half the exhibits had been moved to the eastern branch of the museum, which requires no reservations. No mention of which was on their website.
The ‘jade gallery’ had been donated a year ago by a hyper rich man who’d finally realised he couldn’t take his collection with him. ‘Ethnic minorities’ included a large number of attire examples that couldn’t possibly be real. They were far too perfect. Their Tibetan mask collection was outstanding. Of course, no mention was made of the assimilation of the minority Uyghur people and their forced adherence to CCP policies.
Ming and Qing dynasty furniture was on display in the next gallery. Beautifully ornate ‘cloud’ designs. Puzzling over how they were possibly patient enough to carve such things focused our minds.
Last and both best and least was the triple roomed Egyptian exhibition. It certainly wasn’t what we wanted to see while exploring China. It appeared to be sponsored by Egypt Air. None of the domestic tourists actually paid for tickets. They just walked up, the machine the man had scanned their ID and it came up negative but they went in anyway. So it was crammed beyond belief.
Most of the tourists weren’t even present. Either wired into a headset crowding round exhibits for far too long while they listened to a voice. More annoyingly was the advent of augmented reality glasses. Barely able to see where they were going, let alone the exhibits, glasses were only removed to, stereotypically, take thousands of unnecessary pictures. As if they were cataloguing the exhibits. Sometimes a couple would be simultaneously taking pictures of the same thing. Their actual eyes barely examined the objects. Supposedly it’s a cultural phenomenon, we just found it fucking annoying.
Typically for an Egyptian exhibit, through plenty of pushing and sidling, we saw mummies, sarcophagi, statues of Sekhmet and a first for us, cat mummies. Loads of them. Outside we saw multiple westerners unable to get a ticket at the office, whereas Chinese people were obtaining them effortlessly. Something dodgy was going on.
Shanghai was impossible to stay in without spending more money than we’d been used to parting with. Eventually we settled on the Radisson near the train station for £50 a night. Nothing in Europe, but far too much for China. Worried about getting tickets for the only train to Hong Kong that left Shanghai each day we logged onto 12306.cn.
Infuriatingly we were placed two rows apart, for an 8 hour journey. No sleepers on this route, yet. So we let the order time out, 20 minutes, and tried again. Punished, we were now 6 coaches apart. We also learnt that if you fail to continue with 3 orders per day you’re locked out until the next morning. We felt we had no choice but to book just in case. As we just happened to be overlooking the railway station we decided to try and change our seats. Classically spartan, the ticket office had several representatives on hand utilising a utilitarian back end interface. Minutes later and our seats were effortlessly changed. It was inexplicable why we’d been separated.
Lujiazui was famed for its elevated walkway that resembled a roundabout for humans. Stepping out onto the platform we were greeted by the world famous views of ridiculous skyscrapers. Oriental Pearl television tower looked exceedingly odd. Fat chance it would receive planning permission in the UK. Just off the ‘roundabout’ was Super Brand Mall. One of the many monuments to capitalism in the city. Hidden downstairs on floor B2 was another branch of the vegan buffet restaurant, Su Man Xiang.
Deliciously consistent Chinese food at a reasonable price. Being stung multiple times by the fancier places and feeling ripped off we were at home there. The best dish was the weird cereal covered, battered potato pieces.
When we emerged from the mall the lights were flashing on all the towers. Immensely popular with tourists, we were in demand for photos too. Despite dripping with sweat. Soon unamused by the buildings, we took the tube to East Nanjing Road. Yet more crazy lights draped on buildings and thousands more outlets to spend money on. Within a few minutes we were targeted by several sellers for knock off designer bags and what is apparently the latest stupid fad, La Bubu dolls. Nothing else to see but shops, we came home, did some late night laundry and went to sleep.
Surly They Won't Make It 