Tea and Scams in Speedy Shanghai

We were hurried off our train by the carriage attendant and made our way through the cattle-run that is Shanghai Station Immigration. After processing we popped out into a large open concrete square, blinking in the brightness and trying not to look like a prime target to the hordes of touts. After a quick scurry back indoors for a guide book consultation we launched ourselves into the underground. There was already a big difference between here and Hong Kong - next to no English on the signs. As it would turn out, this seemed to be a unique oversight in this particular corner of town but there we were struggling through an underground map with only coloured lines and squiggles for guidance. With the exception of several wrong escalators we did alright and arrived at our hostel reasonably intact.

This would be our first foray into the world of youth hostels, having managed to see our way round the globe so far in hotels, of varying standards. The accommodation costs here in China are much higher than they have been anywhere else so far, so we decided to rough it and see what it's really like to be a backpacker. The hostel was lovely. We still had our own room with en-suite so it was no different to a hotel, with the addition of couches down stairs, internet, a bar, tv with a stack of pirate DVDs and most valuably, very friendly staff who all speak excellent English and can't do enough to help you. We vowed never to stay in a hotel again. Having settled in we ventured out to explore our new neighbourhood. We went in search of some traditional cuisine and had a very satisfying meal at Pizza Hut before continuing our walk. It was starting to rain so we popped into a tea-house to see off the worst of it.

Tea houses are a very big thing in China. The procedure is something a bit like this. You get given a menu with a huge list of different teas to pick from (in our case we just point at something) and then a little teapot stand with a candle in the middle is plonked in front of you, everybody around watches with much amusement to see what the white folk have ordered and once they've watched enough settle down. A glass tea-pot arrives and two little tea cups. Everyone turns again to watch your first sip and if you don't do anything interesting pretty much settle back into their games of cards. The tea pot is not very big, and the tea at first is rather weak. It is all loose leaf of course. As you get through the pot someone keeps coming past and tops it up with hot water from a flask. The leaves have the capacity to endure infinite refills it would seem, and so do the people, who will spend an entire afternoon or day even, playing cards and keeping out of the heat or rain on one pot of tea. About an hour later and the rain had not proceeded from threatening so we took the chance to head homeward. Anyone will realise that it was inevitable what happened next, and sure enough we cowered under the umbrella we reluctantly took with us at the insistence of the hostel earlier in the day. After much wandering around lost we gave up and got on the metro and discovered we had walked a full stop past our place and out the other side.

We liked the Metro system in Shanghai, mostly (not the night it stranded us on the wrong side of town by shutting at 10pm), but not as much as we liked the Maglev. The Maglev (magnetic levitation) train is a prototype installation that runs between the city and the airport. Using big magnets it floats 10mm above a concrete track and due to the reduced resistance can go very fast with not too much effort and no exhaust gasses. The train reaches a top speed of 431Km/h and makes the 30km trip in 8 minutes. We watched the scenery whizz past and watched the big speedometer in the carriage as it counted up to the top speed, held it for about a minute and then dropped back down again. Then we got off, went around the platform and got back on for our return trip on the fastest train in the world.

The rest of our time in Shanghai was mostly spent around town seeing the sights and the river. The city really feels like two cities. On one side of the river is the shiny new business district with all kinds of innovative sky scrapers competing for the wow factor, and across the water is the old city - a low-rise colonial facade of hotels and other big old buildings, from the days of European trade and administration. We were enjoying the People's Park one afternoon when we got talking to some Chinese students, on holiday themselves they said, and would we like to wander about with them for a bit, so they could practise their English. We were happy to oblige and while I was busy trying to explain the intricacies of Scottish devolutionary politics to one of them (who was genuinely interested) Nikki was starting to recall a warning we had read about this kind of thing. Our random meanderings had taken a very definite diversion out of the park and through town and when we suddenly found ourselves sitting down around a table to sample some fine Chinese Teas, Nikki knew we had been had. A sudden bout of that terrible head-ache she gets and we made a hasty departure, hoping we hadn't just offended our very perplexed hosts that were left behind. By the end of the day though we had been approached by about another four groups of students, all studying English, all on holiday, all wondering if they could practise their English on us and all heading along to sample some tea, and all trying to take us with them. There was no doubt we had had a lucky escape. The scam apparently works as it did to us and then we would have all enjoyed a happy couple of hours around the table, learning about how difficult it is for students to support themselves, and then when a stupendous bill arrives at the table, it becomes our sole responsibility to pay for it, the consequences for refusal being varied.

We had a fun time in Shanghai and left after about 5 days, having discovered that another wonderful thing about hostels is that they are happy to phone up and book ahead for you wherever you are going. We booked for Suzhou a town famous for its Chinese gardens and then hopped on a train - no sleeper this time though, only an hour away, and 15 minutes early too meaning we had that horrible doubt as we walked under Chinese language signs, hoping we didn't get off too early.