Thursday, December 11, 2014 @ 10:24 AM in 2014 Asia
We got up early this morning so we could see Mao before catching the high speed train to Shanghai. We packed up our bags before heading out to see the Mao Mausoleum which opened at 8am. The line went pretty fast and they shuffled everyone through the mausoleum pretty fast. He looked like a pretty bad wax sculpture but all the locals seemed to be loving it. We got out by 8:15 and headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and catch a cab to the train station.
The process of getting into the train station and getting our tickets went pretty smoothly. We grabbed a few snacks and got on the train. The train took off and averaged over 300kph for most of the 4 hour ride. We passed through a lot of towns that had some crazy construction projects going on. There were towns in the middle of nowhere that had about 20-30 skyrise style apartment buildings going up. I had heard about the Chinese ghost towns before and it definitely looked like they were building more.
Once we got into Shanghai we got another taxi to the hotel. It's actually a pretty nice one although it smells like someone is smoking nearby. We made plans with some acquaintances of Mike's for dinner here in Shanghai and met up with them at a restaurant called Sichuan Citizen. There were 11 of us and we ordered a bunch of food family style, all of which was really good.
Afterwards we went to a microbrewery called Liquid Laundry where I tried one of their IPA's. After we all called it a night Mike and I had a little trouble catching a cab back to the hotel but finally got one and made it back to the hotel. We got a list of stuff to do for the next few days here but we're going to take it pretty easy tomorrow morning so we can sleep in for the first day in a while.
Teaser photos:
Tags: china, beijing, shanghai, travels2014
Posted from: China
