So as I mentioned I went on vacation to China in the beginning of April. I went there together with a friend to visit another friend who is currently studying there!
We stayed in Shanghai but we went to visit so many cities close to Shanghai, that it almost feels like we barely saw Shanghai at all!
Day 1
I will see this as the day we arrived, we already left the day before, but I guess describing us sitting in an airplane is not so interesting! I think we arrived around midday at our hostel, totally exhausted. Here we met up with our friend, talked for quite a while, took a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and then we went into the city. Mainly for food, we were so hungry hahah. We also went into a supermarket and we watched our eyes out, SO MANY TYPES OR OREOS!! Then we met up with some of her friends, and went back home early, by then I could barely keep my eyes open. So this was just a short day!
Day 2
Here we had an early start and took a bus to Chongming Island, which took forever haha. I do have an idea no of Chinese traffic haha. Once there we checked into the hotel and went to visit a park. This place was so beautiful and colourful! It was also quite warm (28°C, when I left home it was -1°C haha). We spent most of the time here, later we ate food somewhere and went back to the hotel.
Day 3
We were still on the island, and went to a strawberry farm, which was kinda fun, but again it was a bit too warm for me haha. We also went to this like which was nice. And then we drove back to Shanghai, which took us like 4 hours.. Just because of traffic haha.. Again grabbed some food and went to bed, guess we were kind of jetlagged haha.
Day 4
This day we went to visit Suzhou! Yes on day 4 we still hadn’t seen anything of the actual city haha. I thought the previous days were warm, well nothing had me prepared for this day, 38°C!!! All three of us just barely had the energy to do anything because of this. Which probably means we haven’t seen as much of this place as we would have liked. After the sun started to go down we finally had the energy to walk around and enjoy this place! But then of course a lot of time was already gone.
Day 5
The first day we actually went to explore Shanghai! I absolutely love the diversity in this city (architecture wise) you will have this beautiful temple, with skyscrapers on the background! We went to visit Yu garden but accidently went into a Taoist temple, which might be the mot beautiful temple we have seen (in my opinion). Then we actually went into the Yu gardens, which was again, absolutely beautiful! After that we met up with our friend and went to a fake market, which was fun to see. Tbh I don’t really remember were we went after this? I know we tried to go on the Shanghai tower, but it was way to cloudy so we didn’t want to waste our money on that haha.
Day 6
Another day were we explored Shanghai. We first went to the natural history museum, but unfortunately I started to feel really dizzy inside, so we went out quite quickly again, but it was interesting! Then we went to a Buddha temple, which was also gorgeous! But I still wasn’t feeling to great so me and my friend split up, she stayed there and I went back to the hostel. We then went out for food, and went to the Bund (finally!).
Day 7
This time we went to Hangzhou! Which was again so beautiful and so different from Shanghai. We first went to this lake, were it was quite busy, but was nice. We then ventured away from the lake, onto some mountain. It was so quite there (compared to the lake at least), and so beautiful, there were so many random buildings/statues there! Also SO MANY STAIRS!
After this mountain we went to this place where they were plucking tea leaves, and it was so much fun to see!
Day 8
In the morning we relaxed a little and went to the supermarket, because me and my friend wanted to bring some weird food home! Then we met up with our other friend and went to DISNEY! I’ve never been to Disney before, so this was an experience! I don’t know what to say about this, it was fun!
Day 9
Almost a the end already 🙁 We went to visit Huangshan (or yellow mountain) for two days. We arrived there around 2 I think? We then went to a smaller place, and not the actual mountain, since we wouldn’t have enough time to walk to whole route in sunlight (the sun goes down there really early!). So we went to this place with a lot of waterfalls, and again, beautiful! Also the temperature went a bit down these two days which was so nice! Otherwise I don’t think we would have been able to drag ourselves up this ‘hill’ (compared to the mountain of the next day). We then ate some dinner and went to bed early, since we wanted to leave 7AM the next day.
Day 10
So as mentioned, really early start, which actually was quite nice. The best way to get to the starting point of the hike is take a bus, provided by the park. For this we had to stand in line for a little bit, but you could see that they expected way more people for later in the day. Arrived there we had to buy tickets for the park and cable car, since we decided to take the cable car up and walk down. The line for the cable care was ridiculous. I think it took us almost 1 hour.. But once up there, it was definitely worth it! It was so beautiful! We then hiked to the highest point, I think it was a climb of 200 meters, but of course the route goes up and down a bit. Again, ONLY STAIRS, Chinese really like climbing stairs haha. Along the way we also took some side routes to see more! Once all the way up we took a little break, before we ventured down again. I think we walked down for around 1000 meters, with only stairs.. (After a week I still felt my calves..) And of course it wasn’t just going down, sometimes we still had to go up a bit. Once back down, we went to the train station and back to Shanghai. We ate dinner one last time together, and said our goodbyes 🙁
Day 11
We left at
like 6AM, to the airport, flew together to Moscow, were we split up. I had to
run to catch my next flight to Tallinn, my friend still had to wait a bit. Once
back in Tallinn, my luggage wasn’t there.. Luckily they knew where it was and
they told me they would send it to me the next day. After that I was actually
quite happy I didn’t have to drag my luggage around 🙂 (luggage indeed made it
back to me the next day)
I don’t think I ever wrote such a long post haha. I hope you enjoyed reading this.
I first planned to also give a reading update, about my reads in China, but I literary read 300 pages in 12 days, so I guess you can wait until my wrap up! Also somewhere I bought a Chinese Harry Potter, to extend my collection even more!
I absolutely loved China, now I have one more country to cross of my list! (even though there is still so much more to see!)
Wow, amazing trip! Seems you guys did everything, lol. As you probably experienced, there’s actually not a lot to do in the city proper itself (and yes, the traffic is horrendous….it was bad 10 already years ago when I was there, I can’t imagine how it must be now) and a lot of the best sights are surrounding Shanghai. It’s cool you went to Huangshan! I think my brother went there a few years back, and the pictures he took were amazing, even if they made me a bit dizzy – yes, I’m that afraid of heights! Glad you had fun!
Hahah yes the traffic was an experience on itself haha! Huangshan was definitely worth it! (I have to admit, I stayed far away from any edges hahah)
This sounds like an amazing trip and the photos are beautiful!! I’ve never left the US but next spring my fiancé and I are going to the UK & Ireland for our honeymoon!
Thank you so much! Ooh I love both uk and Ireland, where are you planning to go?
Since it’s our first trip there, we’re hitting just the big cities. We’re flying into London, heading up to Edinburgh, then Glasgow, and finally to Dublin. We’re really excited!
Ooh I love London and Dublin! (Haven’t been to the others) Enjoy!
Evelyn, this looks amazing!! Glad you had such an amazing trip
Yes it was Thanks!