We arrived in Shanghai early with the sleeper train (not much to say about that) and took a taxi to our hotel. Even though we’ve been to Shanghai before and actually liked our hotel, we chose another one this time, since the reviews from our original hotel weren’t as good anymore. Our new choice was closer to the Bund and closer to the ferry terminal, both within short walking range. But unlike our last hotel, they don’t offer coffee (and the coffee there was really, really good… now even too far away to just go there and grab a cup).

Basically during the one and a half days we explored the Bund and Pudong. The Bund is the waterfront area of the Huangpu River with a lot of historical buildings, from where you can see the famous skyline, while Pudong is the part of Shanghai where the skyscrapers from said skyline actually are (well, Pudong is much bigger than that, a major part of the city, but let’s keep it simple).

We didn’t visit any of the historical buildings at the Bund (except for a bank, but just for the ATM) or a skyscrapter in Pudong, but rather walked around the areas (while looking for geocaches of course). But it was interesting nonetheless. Just like the first time when we were in Shanghai, the sky was cloudy and the view over the river hazy, so again no good pictures of the skyline. And once the weather looked bad enough to rain, we headed back to the hotel and called it a day early.

We were also looking for a way to get from the Bund to Pudong by walking, but there wasn’t any way, even the tourist information office couldn’t help us. I thought I remembered something about a sightseeing tunnel or something, but is seemed like my memory was mistaken. As we learned later, there was indeed such a tunnel, it’s just that you cannot walk to the other side, but are taken there by a car or train or whatsoever. They didn’t suggest that at the tourist information office. But then again, they didn’t even have a map for my collection.

Shanghai was just a brief stop again. Our actual reason to be here was the ferry, for another important part of the journey:
The voyage to Japan.