Shanghai (China)

We flew out of Singapore around lunchtime on the 6^th of July and, after a stopover in Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport, we arrived in Shanghai at around a quarter to one in the morning. (The flight from KL was freezing, but conveniently AirAsia had plenty of blankets and socks on offer for cold travellers, which you had to pay for, of course.) After our taxi ride from the airport, during which our driver got lost and generously gave us a cheap night-time tour of the Shanghai streets, we eventually reached our hostel (Blue Mountain Bund Youth Hostel) at around 3 am and tucked into our bunks in our 8-bed mixed dorms soon after. Our hostel was comfortable with a funky common room with a snooker table and outdoor terrace (and a foosball table), and the city centre and metro stations were easily accessible. We didn’t do much on our first full day, other than get our bearings in the city, but we did visit the ‘People’s Park’ (basically a large garden in the middle of the city where men gather to play cards and smoke) and take a walk around the main city-centre area. After a (seriously) good sleep on our second night, we visited an area known as The Bund, which is a part of the city beside the Huangpu River that runs through the city. This provided a panoramic viewpoint of the impressive Shanghai skyscrapers.

Street-side fruit stall

On Shanghai itself, just like Singapore, there were people everywhere we turned and it was hard to move around the streets without walking into someone (or a scooter or a bike, both of which also used the footpaths). Shanghai is not really known for its multitude of tourist sites (and there weren’t very many easily-discernible tourists there), but the real attraction of the city lies in its amazing skyline and lively backstreet culture. A walk along these narrow backstreets provided numerous pungent smells (including the very aromatic streetfood) and a cacophony of shouting, scooter beeps, food cooking, and people going about their daily lives.


Backstreet house

Side note: For some funny reason, we (mainly me!) got asked several times to pose for photos with excited-looking Chinese people. Of course, I dually obliged. In a couple of cases, people took pictures of us as we walked by without even asking us, which was even weirder.

Next, on to Beijing…

 

Men playing cards at the People's Park



Shanghai high-speed train station

Old town Shanghai



The Bund

Singapore

After flying from Dublin, with a brief stopover in Dubai, we arrived in Singapore on Wednesday 1st July. Getting to our hostel (the 'Five Stones hostel') from the airport was fairly straightforward by bus, and we finally checked our groggy selves in at around five in the evening after nearly 24 hours spent flying and waiting in airports. Our hostel was located in a busy area of the city, with several Turkish, Arabic, Hong Kong, and Mexican restaurants close at hand, as were the obligatory Subway and Starbucks on every second street. On our first full day, and after a brief internet search of the best things to do in Singapore, we decided to bus it to the 'tree-top walk' at MacRitchie Reservoir in the city. This walk consists of a trek through a dense and tall forest, all the while being accompanied by singing birds, clicking insects, overly-friendly monkeys that will rob your lunch given half a chance, and fairly sizable lizards that you can nearly step on before you realise they’re there. Around mid-way through this walk is a free-standing suspension bridge that hangs 25 metres over the forest canopy underneath, providing particularly impressive views of the surrounding landscape. We initially intended to do a 5-km route of the park but unfortunately we had trouble interpreting the signs and accidently ended up doing a 10 km route. Overall, the walk was great and well worth doing, especially since it's free to do. That night, we filled our hungry bellies with some rice and questionable meat in a  Hong Kong-style restaurant near our hostel, and rehydrated with some good-ol' tea (served in plastic cups and with ice, of course).

After two nights in the hostel, we said our goodbyes and ventured outside the main city area to Sentosa, where we stayed with two very generous Irish friends of ours. From there, we visited the so-called Gardens by the Bay, which is a large park reminiscent of a scene from Avatar, with a 'Skywalk' between man-made towers made in the image of gigantic trees. This  provided great photo-ops of the city skyline. Next on our agenda over the next couple of days were visits to the city, which included visits to the 'Merlion' (a large statue of a weird half-lion, half-mermaid creature looking out over Marina Bay off the Singapore Strait), little India (the fresh-food market was impressive and very aromatic!), Arab Street, and Holland Road (for some nice street-food). On Saturday night, we went for a wander around Clarke Quay, which is an area near the main business district that was hopping with pubs and clubs to cater for all tastes and persuasions. Of course, we couldn't resist a quick pint or two in the local Irish pub.



The view from the Skywalk



The 'Tree-top Walk' suspension bridge

 

 

 





The fresh-food market in Little India

Our overall impressions of Singapore are that, firstly, it comes across as quite a rich country, with prices to match (a pint of beer is generally around $15, which is around 10 euro). Fortunately, it also comes across as being safe (possibly due to the supposed zero-tolerance approach taken to many crimes), and there are security cameras scattered everywhere. Secondly, there are lots of people and they are absolutely everywhere! This isn't particularly surprising considering the population is 5.5 million and the total land area is only 716 square km. So Singapore is probably not the best place to go if you don't like large crowds. The people are diverse in ethnicity and religion, with there being many Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, and European people, including the odd Irish person thrown in for good measure. This brings with it the opportunity to try many different foods, which seem to be fairly widely available. About half of the people speak Mandarin as their native language, and a third speak English as their mother tongue. Around one-third of people are Buddhists, and one-fifth Christians. The city is easily explored using the simple and frequent subway system, and is well worth a visit if in that part of the world. We're headed to China next: first stop Shanghai...

Welcome to WanderGaels

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to WanderGaels. This blog exists mainly to update you, our families and friends (and anyone else who doesn't so neatly fit into those categories), on myself and Aisling's goings-on as we make our way eastward around the globe via Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. As well as providing some (potentially snore-inducing) practical details of our little jaunt for any potential travellers, we'll also attempt to give you a taste of some of the places we'll be visiting by offering snippets of information about the local people, history, food, and all-round culture. We'll add a few choice photos to help us do this along the way.

For example, here's an obligatory jumping-in-the-air photo that has nothing to do with our travels (I can't promise it'll be the last):

At this stage, you might be wondering why we decided to undertake such a voyage. Or, alternatively (and probably more likely), you might not care. Either way, here's why:

Firstly, neither of us have ever been lucky enough (in the last 25 years at least) to have visited any of the places we are planning to travel to, and we really want to see some new places that we have never experienced and may not get the chance to go to again. It might seem like a given that it's a bit risky to up and leave home, work, and family but, fortunately, we don't have major immediate commitments or responsibilities keeping us in Ireland for the next few months so, as they say, now is the time.

Getting organised:

Once we had made the decision to embark on our wee escapade, the organisational fun began. We booked our trip through Trailfinders, and booked most of our flights on a OneWorld round-the-world ticket. This is a multi-airline ticket that allows travellers to fly (or cover over land) a limited number of miles in a limited number of countries. The over-land part covered by this ticket consists of the distance between arrival and departure flight destinations, and the in-the-air part is distance covered by flying (duh). Luckily enough, we managed to be able to book most of the flights we needed under this ticket, except for our internal Asia flights, which we booked (or will book) separately ourselves.

Once the main flights were booked, we needed to get visas for China and Australia before we departed. We applied for the Australia visa online, and it was generally straightforward, but getting the China visa required two trips to the Chinese visa office in Dublin; one for application and one for collection. The next things we needed to get were shots (no, not that type of shots), which we got for a varied assortment of pleasant maladies, such as hepatitis, yellow fever, typhoid, and tetanus. Once fully vaccinated, and with the required visas in hand, we proceeded to gather some 'necessary' supplies, such as mosquito nets, deet mosquito repellent, and mini locks for our bags (mainly to prevent unwanted items being covertly placed in our bags at airports without us knowing). After an admittedly  less-than-thorough peruse of some online backpacker forums for information, we acquired two 65-litre backpacks with a smaller 15-litre detachable bag on each one, filled them with all our bits and bobs, and we were on our merry little way...